


In the Days to Come

by CapsuleCorp



Category: One Piece
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Dialogue Heavy, Dressrosa, Gen, Post-Dressrosa, Straw Hat Grand Fleet - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 22:22:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12567496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CapsuleCorp/pseuds/CapsuleCorp
Summary: Ideo and Bluegilly went from strangers to best friends in just under three days, and a group of disparate individuals became a Grand Fleet. How did they go about getting to know one another and making these decisions? This is one attempt at bridging the gap. Actual scenes from the anime included but either glossed over or rephrased.Note: I got tired of waiting for the cover stories to finish to get all the details exact, so there's some ambiguity about Hajrudin's ship. Don't care wanna post. (edited 11-2-17 to include new info from chapter 884)





	In the Days to Come

There was nothing not awkward about standing in the hall of the ruined palace looking across a sea of weary civilian faces, several of whom looked warily back at the cluster of massive, muscled fighters dripping blood and sweat. Tank hurriedly explained to them that it was King Riku’s insistence that they take refuge in the palace alongside the hordes of homeless Dressrosa residents, and though no one turned down the hospitality, they stood for a while doing their best not to look so obviously out of place. Most of them were too big to shrink into a corner and hide even if they wanted to, and though some of the civilians looked dubious, the majority were aware that the coliseum fighters had been part of the effort to protect and save them, and so in the end they were being taken in as saviors and given every chance to rest and heal. Ideo felt worse than he looked, standing tall even though his whole body hurt and he wasn’t sure he had the energy left to keep himself upright for much longer. He listened to Tank’s direction on where they could sit or lie down and how soon the town doctor would be there to bandage them up, and then glanced at the others to see what they thought. Despite their very different backgrounds, roles in the fight, and current states of injury, the coliseum fighters had loosely bonded together thanks to the ordeal and preferred one another’s company to mingling with the locals. They moved as one block to the side of the hall where there looked to be room for all of them, or at least they started to. Ideo took a step and then faltered, his head suddenly swimming and the room spinning around him. Someone caught him before he could tumble onto the floor, and he looked up to find the Longleg, Bluegilly, holding him by the arm. Electric blue eyes swept his figure from head to toe, and a frown arched his wide mouth. “You look more fucked up than most of these guys,” he noted. “Here, sit down over here.”

Ideo wanted to argue, but it wasn’t like he could hide the puncture wound in his gut or the ugly, bloody lacerations to his neck. Everything had temporarily clotted up thanks to the emergency treatment that had allowed him to get up and push against the barrier alongside the others, but even if he wasn’t bleeding out he was still completely shredded, and anyone with half a brain could see it. He nodded and let Bluegilly guide him to a spot along the wall that hadn’t been taken yet, where he finally allowed himself to wilt and slide down the stone to a seat on the floor. The Longleg crouched down beside him, and then collapsed to sit instead once his tired legs gave out. Ideo looked him over in turn; he didn’t seem to be sporting a lot of open wounds, save for some cuts and long, raking scratches to his muscled thighs, but there were bruises along his throat where Dellinger had attempted to kick his head off his shoulders. Ideo had seen that, it was part of the reason he moved in to attack the executive directly, but he was glad to see that Bluegilly hadn’t sustained worse damage from it. When nothing was said between them, Ideo turned his gaze outward instead, gauging who among their group had taken the most damage. Hajrudin, obviously, but the giant had already received a large share of the dwarf-princess’s emergency treatment or else he wouldn’t have been able to walk anywhere thanks to the quantity of shattered bones in his body. He had made it up to this floor with them and now lay just beyond the arcade in the only hallway where his huge body fit comfortably, helm off and still drifting in and out of consciousness. Ideo finally noticed Don Chinjao’s bent head, wondering how it got like that, and then looked to compare Sai and Orlumbus to Dagama, Suleiman, and the others. Bartolomeo even looked more trashed than some like Jeet and King Elizabello, but he still had the energy to be arguing nose-to-nose with Cavendish about something. It was clear at that point that Bluegilly was right – he was one of the most heavily-injured among them. Ideo knew it wasn’t a competition, who had sustained the most damage, but he couldn’t help but wonder why he was so much worse off next to almost all the others. He was still silently stewing over it when a little man with a doctor’s bag showed up, nervously pushing his tiny spectacles up his nose when he saw the amount of work ahead of him. Cavendish wasted no time turning away from Bartolomeo and demanding to be looked at immediately, something about his left hand, but Bartolomeo shoved him bodily aside. “You only got that one little cut, some of us took a shitload of poison needles all over!” he raged at the other captain.

“And you seem to be standing up just fine!” Cavendish shot back. “It’s first come first served and I’m first!”

“Poison needles? Oh dear…” the doctor fretted, looking into his bag as if to doubt he had the supplies to fix that kind of damage.

Sai shoved his way between them, though not to break them up. “If anyone should get treated first it’s my old man!” he blazed. “He got beat up real badly! Lao G almost killed him!”

Chinjao waved a hand to try to calm him down, though he made no move to get up and get into it. “It’s fine, Sai, I’ll be fine for a bit. There are others who are worse off.”

“Yeah.” Ideo startled as he heard the voice immediately beside him speak up sharply. “Like him.”

Ideo lifted his head to find that Bluegilly was thumbing at him. All eyes turned to see this as well, and for a moment no one spoke, not even to argue. Bartolomeo seemed to be satisfied as long as anyone else was going to get treated ahead of Cavendish, and Sai hesitated, staring over at the two of them sitting by the wall. “It’s not that bad,” the Longarm insisted, though he had his famed arms wrapped around him to disguise the worst of it. “What about Hajrudin? His arms and legs were smashed to bits.”

“There is a team working on the giant,” the doctor assured, “his injuries are quite severe but with his size, it takes several people to wrap him up. Here, young man, let me see…”

He bent down to examine the deep lacerations in Ideo’s neck from the shark-like teeth, and without even needing to see the hole in his stomach or the cut to his scalp, pronounced that he would need to treat this man first. Bluegilly got up, then, and silently got out of the way, going over to shove Cavendish a little and then have a word or two with Suleiman. Ideo had no choice but to submit, and took his treatment like a man, wincing a little but making no outcry as the doctor urgently washed his wounds to reopen them and then bandaged them properly, muttering a little about stitches for the stomach wound. Only then did Ideo stop him. “It’s not like my guts are going to fall out,” he complained, thinking of what kind of scar that might leave. “Save the stitches for the regular people who might not be as strong as us.”

The doctor looked a little sheepish, but nodded. “I’m concerned about running out of medical supplies. But if I do this, there is a condition: if the bleeding doesn’t stop, you’ll need to get it stitched up. Keep an eye on it and for heaven’s sake don’t be all manly about it.”

“Got it,” Ideo grunted, settling down to be wrapped. When the doctor finished, most of his neck, chest, and abdomen were swathed in very tight bandages, and another circled his head in order to keep the cut on his forehead covered. Even the lower parts of his arms were wrapped, though he fussed about having his special boxing jacket removed and the doctor ended up having to bandage over the sleeves. Ideo was content to stay right there and rest while the doctor moved on to Don Chinjao, then Suleiman, and then Bartolomeo, which kept him rather busy until the rest of his team came over from treating Hajrudin and scattered to clean and bandage all the rest of the fighters. The poor medical team was not likely to get any rest that night, for they still had to go among the civilians to tend any injuries sustained among them, but they diligently went about their work without complaining and in the end, all of the fighters were at least temporarily cared for.

Tank came back in to check on them once the doctor and his assistants moved on, and though he couldn’t promise them food until morning, or beds or even spare blankets, he gave them the king’s promise that their needs would be met and the Marines would not be allowed into the palace at all, so the criminals and pirates among them could rest easy. He exhorted them to get some sleep, at which point Bartolomeo came storming back up to Cavendish yet again. “Oi, oi! Somebody get me some chains for this one! Super-strong ones, too!”

“What?” Cavendish bristled at him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I mean it! It’s an emergency,” Bartolomeo insisted, drawing everyone’s attention to him. Ideo even got up and wandered over to see what the fuss was about, stepping up alongside Bluegilly. “If we don’t tie him up right now, there’s gonna be a monster among us!”

Cavendish looked supremely offended. “A monster!”

“You know what I mean!” Bartolomeo shoved his fangy face right up into his, scowling fiercely. “Don’t even pretend, Mr. Half-and-Half! Do you really want your other side to get out and slaughter all those nice people over there? Huh? _Huh?_ ”

Some of the townspeople listening startled and gaped at them, and Cavendish went suddenly pale before clapping a hand over Bartolomeo’s mouth. “Shut up! Don’t scare them like that! All right, _fine_ , if it’ll put everyone’s minds at ease tonight, I’ll allow myself to…”

He didn’t get any further before Tank handed over a length of chain from his own weapon and Bartolomeo immediately fell to looping it around Cavendish’s arms and torso. There was still some perfunctory protesting, particularly when Bartolomeo threw him bodily down on the floor, but in the end even he knew that this was wise in a room full of innocent people and had no choice but to relax and try to sleep encased in a cocoon of chain. At least Bartolomeo took responsibility for it and threw himself down right next to Cavendish to guard him, though not until after he had pulled on the clean coat his crew had brought for him. Noticing that, Ideo glanced to Bluegilly, because he was also wearing a fresh jacket rather than the paisley shirt from earlier, a comfortable blue sweatshirt with stars on the sleeve. “How were you able to change?” he wondered. 

“Huh?” Bluegilly looked back at him, and then down at his jacket. “Oh, this? Someone brought all our bags from the coliseum. Didn’t you know?”

Ideo’s brow knit as something struck him. “My bags weren’t in the coliseum…”

“No?” Bluegilly frowned, perplexed. “Didn’t you bring anything?”

“Of course I did, but…” Ideo let out a sudden breath as if someone had punched him in his sore gut. “I got here yesterday, so I got a hotel nearby. I think…I think it was in the area that got demolished by the Birdcage.”

“…oh, shit.” The Longleg blinked. “Sorry, I just assumed that all of us came right to the Colosseum. I didn’t think anyone would have been, y’know, prepared.” He looked long and hard at Ideo, but aside from the initial shock of the thought, he didn’t seem terribly upset. “Does that mean you’ve lost all your stuff?”

“I guess so.” Ideo pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly. “It’s no big deal, just…all of my custom clothes, spare gloves. It’s not like I had anything sentimental to lose.” He shook his head and brushed past Bluegilly to go and find somewhere to rest. “Lucky you, I guess.”

Bluegilly watched him go and settle into a new spot along the wall, next to Sai, who had already hunkered down with arms and legs stoically crossed while the woman who had defected from Doflamingo’s crew laid with her head pillowed on his knee. It looked like Ideo would sleep sitting up, back against the wall, making Bluegilly wonder if he was still in that much pain from his injuries, that lying down would have been even more uncomfortable. There was still room on the floor if anyone wanted it, so it wasn’t like he didn’t have a choice. Shrugging it off, Bluegilly waded through the bodies already stretched out on the floor, past Bartolomeo and Jeet, and found a spot where he could sleep. The cold, hard stone of the palace floor was only bothersome for a few minutes, and then his exhaustion caught up to him and he passed right out as though it were a fine feather-stuffed mattress.

Morning dawned rather quietly over Dressrosa, though the clouds which had moved in toward dusk had melted away in the night and now the sun shone brightly through the shattered windows and holes in the walls. The collection of coliseum fighters remained sequestered over in their personal corner, some still asleep long after the room came to life around them and the noise level rose slightly, some content to just sit and look around or converse quietly. At some point Baby 5 got up, brushed down her skirt, and marched off without a word to any of them, a swift and purposeful movement that raised heads and caught eyes. After a short while she returned looking slightly triumphant and leaned against Sai’s shoulder. “I went to see if anyone had even thought to start making breakfast,” she explained to him, but loud enough that the others could hear as well. “And if not, I was going to go right to the kitchen and do it myself. But they’re already taking care of it, so we should have something to eat pretty soon.”

“Good,” Sai grunted, still sitting with his arms folded and trying to resist her charms, even though he had let her sleep against him all night. “Good to know the palace staff is on the ball.”

Even with the devastation and the abrupt change in power from ruthless pirates to the benevolent King Riku, the maids, cooks, guards, and grounds staff who had been kept on during Doflamingo’s reign were hard at work, ignoring the damage and looking rather happy to be serving the citizens, their saviors, and their king. A few of the refugees pitched in to help, and in no time at all the people resting in the palace were being escorted in batches upstairs to where every last table scrounged from every nook and cranny of the palace had been set up to hold food. There were lines, but no one complained about them. The fighters had their turn, and since all of them were rested up enough to stand and walk, they took their turn standing in line to be served. Families and the elderly were given priority for seating, while the able-bodied drifted off to sit on the floor in any hallway or empty room they could find. Once he had received his own bowl of hot rice bathed in butter and one lonely little sausage, Ideo slipped away from all the hubbub of the long lines and babbling children and found another stairwell along a back corridor where there didn’t seem to be any traffic at all. He sat down on the steps with every intention of eating alone, but no more than a couple of bites in and a shadow fell over him; he looked up to find Bluegilly once again settling down next to him. Ideo peered at him. “What do you want now?”

“What, is this seat taken or something?” Bluegilly retorted, giving him a casual glance before starting in on his food.

“Well, no, but…” Ideo watched him for a moment, but when nothing happened he conceded and went back to eating in sullen silence.

As depleted and hungry as they were, even that simple breakfast was a feast, and both fell to it out of need. It wasn’t until they were nearly finished that anything resembling conversation could be had, and it was Bluegilly who broke the comfortable quiet. “Aw, you got a sausage?”

Ideo looked into his bowl at the meat he was saving for last. “I think I got the last one.”

“Lucky. Though I guess you probably need it more.” Ideo shot him another look at that, but Bluegilly ignored it. “How’d you sleep?”

“Well enough, I guess,” Ideo answered quietly. He had expected worse, but apparently his battered body knew what it needed, for once he was out he stayed out until Sai accidentally kneed him. “You?”

“It was no feather-bed, but I think I actually got sleep,” Bluegilly mused. “Fucking Jeet snores like a bear, though.”

Ideo snorted at that, the barest hint of a laugh. “It’s not like we have a lot of choice in the matter. All the same…” He trailed off and looked down into his bowl, nearly empty now. “We’re alive. That counts for something.”

“Sure does,” Bluegilly agreed. “I don’t think any of us coming in for the tournament had any idea it would end up this way. Come for the tournament, stay for the complete destruction of an entire country.” He shook his head slowly, as if it was all hitting him right then and there – how close they all came to dying, murdered by a psychopathic warlord intent on preventing every last individual from being able to tell anyone outside of the island what they had witnessed. “Just…damn.”

Ideo sat up slightly and gave him a good, long, solid look, studying him for the first time out of the ring. He hadn’t known a thing of the Longleg fighter only twenty-four hours ago, and here they were, sitting around a ruined palace wrapped tightly in bandages after fighting for their very lives. “Kinda puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?” he mused in a low tone.

“A little bit,” Bluegilly agreed, sweeping the last grains of rice out of his bowl with a finger. “Were you really in it for the Mera-Mera?”

“Yeah, actually.” Ideo had saved the meager sausage for last, and popped it into his mouth in one bite. “I may not know a lot about pirates or the Whitebeard crew, but even I’ve heard the Mera-Mera fruit called one of the most powerful in existence. And since Devil Fruit aren’t forbidden in the circuit, there really wasn’t any good reason why I shouldn’t go for it. I mean, how was I to know it was a trap set for Straw Hat?”

“None of us knew that,” Bluegilly muttered, shaking his head. “I mean, even if you’d heard that Fire Fist Ace was his brother, it still looked like just an amazing tournament prize on paper. And they really did advertise that in all the right places to draw all the big names.”

Ideo tipped his chin up in a gesture toward him. “How long have you been on the fighting circuit, anyway?”

“I’m not really officially on it.” Bluegilly set his bowl aside and leaned back, resting his elbows on a step above where he sat. “I just go around looking for whatever fight seems like the most fun. Only been in a handful of real-stakes tournaments so far, no championships but I make it pretty close to the top.” He looked toward Ideo, his mouth turned down in the slightest frown. “It’s not that I have any doubts about my strength, but I figured a Devil Fruit like that might give me an actual shot at Central Champion. You can’t keep the title forever.”

Ideo smirked for a fleeting moment, but then it faded away, and he looked down at the bowl dangling between his fingers, as he sat with his lower elbows on his knees. “I know I can’t,” he said sourly, “and that’s why I wanted the Devil Fruit. Not that it matters anymore – none of us got it, so we’re all right back where we started, with a bunch more bruises and broken bones to show for it.”

“Have you heard anything about the guy who took it?”

“Only that he took Straw Hat’s place in the finals.”

“Bartolomeo knows,” Bluegilly said seriously. “Maybe later we can corner him and get the full story.”

“Hmm.” It seemed like a worthy idea, but the identity of the mystery man who had taken off with the Mera-Mera was the least of Ideo’s concerns right at that moment. His eyes raked up the length of Bluegilly’s extremely long, bandaged legs in curiosity. “You’re pretty tough, though. Don’t see a lot of Longlegs out and about, even in the New World, so I’ve never seen Jiaokungdo in action before.”

Bluegilly let his head roll back and some of his usual smugness come back to his grin. “Been training for a long time, I’m no wet-behind-the-ears rookie. It’s not like every Longleg uses that technique, anyway, not any more than every Longarm is a boxer.” He gave Ideo a pointed look at that, blue eyes sliding to his bunched shoulders.

Ideo followed his gaze and laughed softly under his breath. “No, I guess you’re right. I’ve been fist-fighting since I was a kid, someone eventually took notice and suggested I join a gym to get properly trained. My technique is my own, though, I invented it myself.”

“Well, I guess I can see for myself now why they talk so much about Destruction Cannon Ideo, the champion.” Bluegilly sat back upright and gave him a small rap on the arm, a friendly gesture. “Kinda wish I’d seen the rest of the fight. You must’ve really been hitting hard to get yourself so banged up.”

Ideo looked modestly away at the compliments, because he knew the truth of it. “You were out cold that whole time, then?”

“Pretty much. All I know is when I woke up and the others were talking about the Birdcage, I wasn’t anywhere near where I remembered getting hit by that little shit.” Bluegilly kneaded one of his bandaged legs uncomfortably. “And I don’t remember anyone actually striking my legs.”

“I’m betting that was Pica,” Ideo grumbled, fingers tightening on the empty bowl in his hand until he almost shattered it. He decided to set it down rather than break the palace’s limited supplies. “He started shooting stone spikes out of every inch of ground, and he was deliberately targeting the injured. Hajrudin was down by then, he even went after him.”

Bluegilly stared, unsure what to think but believing that was, indeed, how he had been thrown across the plateau to wake up near the giant and Ideo when the dwarf-princess’ emergency healing brought them all back into the figurative ring. “What happened, then? All I know is the rest of the executives were taken out somehow, but nobody’s said anything about who or how.”

It had been a crazy whirlwind evening after the fighting ceased, they had been sitting around just sort of absorbing the enormity of what had happened around them and feeling all their worst pains returned to them when Tank had rounded them up to bring them into the shelter of the palace, so none of the visiting fighters had stopped to tell each other their stories yet. Ideo took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he recalled the mayhem on the second level of the plateau. “After Dellinger took you out, I started fighting him,” he admitted. “He’s the one who tore me to shreds – put a hole in my gut with his horns, and when I wouldn’t stay down he kept up a pretty damning barrage. I held out as long as I could, by then the others had gotten almost everybody, it was actually just Dellinger and Gladius left.” He winced and reached over to tap his fingers against the thick swath of bandages around his neck and shoulder. “And then the little shit up and grew shark teeth and bit me. He was going for the jugular, I just know it. I got stupidly lucky that he missed, probably by millimeters.”

“Shit…” Bluegilly’s eyes remained wide as he took it all in, amazed at the Longarm’s stamina and determination. “What the hell _is_ he?”

“I’m pretty sure he’s half-fishman,” Ideo answered, though his recollection of Dellinger saying so was still sort of hazy. “I saw the fin.”

“Crazy-ass bastard,” Bluegilly hissed. “He could’ve killed you…”

“For a bit I almost thought he had,” Ideo sighed. “Until the thing with the barrier.”

Bluegilly’s hands on the edge of the step where he sat clenched hard on it. “No wonder you collapsed when the treatment wore off. I didn’t last two hits against him and you went that many rounds with him, and kept getting up?”

If he had been describing a monumental effort in the tournament ring, Ideo would have sat there preening with pride and conceit, happily acknowledging his strength and superiority, but this time, he felt exactly the opposite. Stubbornly pushing himself to his limits to keep Dellinger focused on him and sacrificing himself for the overall goal of giving Straw Hat time to face Doflamingo sounded noble and incredible in description but the reality of it was painful and hard. “But I was defeated,” he pointed out. “And then left to die. I don’t know who actually got Dellinger in the end, but it wasn’t me. He tore out my throat and then flung me off the stone spire. Both Hajrudin and I might have died if Leo’s princess hadn’t done her thing.”

Bluegilly was quiet for a moment, eying him carefully. “Mortality’s a bitch, isn’t it?”

Ideo squeezed his eyes shut, mostly out of a sense of frustration that he was being so open and vulnerable around the Longleg he hardly knew. “You don’t really face death in the tournament ring. Sure, some shows might talk big about the possibility of getting killed, but it’s just tough talk. Bullshit to get the crowd riled up. Even here, in the coliseum…they said people could die but I never felt like my life was in danger. Not until we got out from the underground and saw what we were actually up against.” He scratched awkwardly at the bandages around his neck and then tried to brush it off, sitting up and stretching his legs out on the steps. “It’s…well, there you go. You wanted to know, that’s as much as I remember. I was out after that, didn’t see what happened with Bartolomeo and Cavendish on the next level.”

There was one thing Bluegilly did not miss in that tale. “So you pitted yourself against the guy who took down both me and Suleiman.”

“It was nothing personal,” Ideo insisted. “He was just there and he was taking down our guys left and right, somebody had to stop him.”

“Wow, what’s this? The champion is turning down compliments.” Bluegilly leaned toward him. “You sure you’re okay? Didn’t lose too much blood or anything, did you?”

“Shut up. You don’t know me,” Ideo grumbled, leaning away.

He didn’t seem inclined to discuss things further than that, instead making to get up and return his dish to the kitchen now that they were good and finished with breakfast. Bluegilly accompanied him and then subtly herded him back toward the room where they had slept, where most of the fighters were still sort of congregated in their own cliques. Elizabello and Dagama were not there any longer, it was likely they had gone to see King Riku, and Bartolomeo was off somewhere, while the Happo Navy sat together talking in low tones and Orlumbus sat further away in a corner hunched over a den-den mushi. Ideo noticed as he went to find a spot to sit that Bluegilly was sticking to him, and as irritated as he was with himself for opening up to the Longleg, he found he didn’t mind his company. Many of the civilians who had accepted sleeping in the shelter had gone off to pick through the rubble of their homes or to assist around the palace with rebuilding, so the coliseum group was more or less left to themselves. Not long after the two martial artists returned, Bartolomeo reappeared as well, and he had someone special in tow. Riding on his shoulder was Leo, the Tontatta soldier who had been with them through the end of the fighting, and a few other dwarves poked out of the feathery fluff of Bartolomeo’s coat collar. As soon as they were through the door Leo sprang down and bounded around the fighters, happy to see them all looking more stable than yesterday. “How are you all doing?” he asked as he weaved among them and then came to stand where they could all see him. “All of you went through a lot and you don’t even live here or owe the people of Dressrosa anything, so I came to check on you – and I brought someone special.”

He turned back toward Bartolomeo, who blushed happily as one particular dwarf peeked from his feathers – the shining, rosy-cheeked face of the princess herself. They hadn’t met her yet, even though Leo had told them about her and her power to save them. Bartolomeo couldn’t stop wiggling with glee, perhaps because she was just that cute, and offered her his hand to jump on so he could set her down on the floor. All of the fighters crowded around and more than one of them also couldn’t help but squee a little as she gave them a little curtsey. “My name is Princess Mansherry,” she chirped at them. “I wanted to thank you all myself for being so brave.”

“Aw, it was nothing,” Abdullah cooed as he crouched to inspect them both, rubbing his neck modestly.

“Our pleasure, little princess,” Chinjao added with a happy chuckle and a grin that made his eyes crinkle merrily.

Mansherry looked around the circle of Big People fawning over her and noticed their bandages. “Oh my, you’re all so terribly hurt, still. I can help you with that.”

“Mr. Chicken,” Leo said, turning to Bartolomeo. “That bag I gave you…”

“Huh? Oh, right.” Bartolomeo snapped himself alert and dug in his pants pocket, fishing out a small cloth bag tied at the neck. For the size and shape of the bulges of whatever it contained, he handled it as if it weighed no more than a feather, tossing it to Leo to catch.

The fighters crowded even closer in interest as Leo untied the bag and something glowed from inside. Mansherry proudly picked one out – a shining ball that vaguely resembled dandelion fluff. “Whoever is most injured, here – come closer.”

Bluegilly nudged Ideo, but the boxer was uncertain and didn’t move. Orlumbus pointed at Suleiman, who had managed to sit up but still looked sour about the injuries hidden beneath his coat. “How about this guy?”

For all his reputation for bloodthirst and his completely dour-faced reaction to everything, Suleiman managed to look somewhat shy as the tiny princess came over and stretched up to offer him the golden orb. “Take this and apply it to the worst injury. There is a limitation, each donation-flower can only heal one injury at a time.”

Suleiman blinked but obeyed, taking the little glowing fuzzball between his fingers and then pulling aside his coat to place it against one of the puncture wounds from Dellinger’s horns. The glow sank through his shirt and then into his body, and an instant later he let out a startled gasp and pulled his shirt open in order to rip off the bandages beneath. The impalement wound had vanished completely, he brushed his fingers over whole, healed flesh with no surface scar. The fighters around him shared his astonishment at how well it worked, staring at him and then down at Mansherry. Leo offered them the bag, but with a stern look. “We only have a limited amount of donation-flowers. The princess has to borrow healing factor from uninjured people in order to make them, and right now there are far fewer of those than injured all across the island. We want to be able to heal everybody, so please take only one right now. We can come back tomorrow with more.”

Hearing that, the fighters all looked among each other, and one or two demurely waved them off. “I’m not really hurt at all,” Jeet said, still blushing at how cute the Tontatta princess was. “Save it for somebody who needs it.

Mansherry offered his flower to Ideo instead, who solemnly took it and pressed it to his left shoulder. It was warm and soothing, and when he checked, the puncture wounds from Dellinger’s teeth had vanished. “Thanks,” he said gruffly, eliciting a beaming smile from the princess.

She went around healing everyone who needed it, who would take one, except for Bartolomeo who might have already taken his dose for the day, and then paused at Chinjao’s knee, looking up at his massive bulk in awe. “Oh no, your poor head. I might be able to heal that, but it would take much more of my power…”

“Oh, this? No, no, it’s fine,” the old man assured, rubbing his bent skull. “This isn’t bad, it doesn’t bother me. I’m actually quite proud of it, I’d like to keep it this way.”

“Grandpa…” Sai grumbled, blushing for completely different reasons this time.

“Oh…well, if you insist,” Mansherry said cutely.

Chinjao’s cheeks flushed all over again. “So adorable…”

“Make sure you get Hajrudin,” Cavendish implored them, stepping over to them. “He’s stuck sleeping over there in the hallway because he can’t fit through any doorways. He was hurt badly, worse than the rest of us.”

“Oh, right. We’ll make sure to see him on our way up,” Leo affirmed. He beckoned with a wave and the rest of the Tontatta hanging out with Bartolomeo hopped down and gathered around, the princess’ special escort. “We have to go up and see King Riku, after that.”

Mansherry curtseyed again. “Do take care of yourselves. I’ll come back tomorrow with more donation-flowers.”

Once they were gone, only Baby 5 grumped about their visit, folding her arms irritably at the thought that anyone besides her could make Sai blush. Jeet and Abdullah openly squeed over the princess, while the others simply went back to whatever they had been doing. Ideo remembered something Bluegilly had said a short time earlier and looked up to the tall pirate captain standing close to where he sat. “Oi, Bartolomeo. Where’ve you been, besides finding dwarves?”

Bartolomeo turned and seemed somewhat surprised at who was talking to him. “Oh, you know, out and about,” he replied noncommittally. “I had to go look for one of my crewmates who got lost in the shuffle yesterday. It’s all good, now.”

“Is that the ‘Missionary Gambia’ guy who was supposed to be in B Block with us?” Bluegilly wondered.

“Yeah, that’s him.” Rather than tower over them, Bartolomeo flopped down facing them where they sat against the wall and folded his legs. Far from the snide, jeering idiot he had seemed to be yesterday, he looked fairly composed and capable, bandaged around the center of his chest but not much else. His spare coat was clean and undamaged but there were still holes in his harlequin pants from Gladius’ needles. “Fucking Marines got to him before the match, and then wouldn’t you know it? Something must’ve happened after that because I literally didn’t remember he even existed until…oh, I dunno, way after everything went to hell.”

Ideo’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Marines? Did he get hurt at all?”

“Yeah…” Bartolomeo made the same face back at him. “Why? You know something?”

“It’s what happened to all the rest of us, who lost and ended up in the underground harbor.” Ideo frowned grimly. “One of Doflamingo’s crew was a Devil Fruit user who could turn people into toys – she turned all of us into toys,” he noted, gesturing to himself and Bluegilly and presumably the others around them as well. “Anyone who went through the coliseum infirmary ended up the same. But something about that power also made people forget we existed. I remember God Usopp said something about not wanting that to happen to anyone else in his crew, after he knocked her out and broke the spell.”

Bartolomeo blinked at him, gaping a little. “Is that what it was? Huh. So that must be why Flamingo-butt put such a high price on his head. An ability to wipe people out of existence…that’s almost too powerful. That totally explains why I didn’t remember my own crewmate until late last night. I mean,” he added, “besides the fact that I had a bit too much on my mind for a couple hours there, what with the certain death and all.”

“That’s why all of us threw our lot in with Straw Hat,” Bluegilly went on. “Because of what God Usopp did. He set us free from that hell, even if he didn’t even know any of us.”

Bartolomeo sat up a little more sharply, keenly interested about anything that related to Luffy in any manner. “I heard Cabbage say something about a debt…”

“That was the debt,” Ideo acknowledged. “You won, so you didn’t experience it the way we did. All of us were dragged down into a hell where no one even knew we had ever existed, so no one would know to try to rescue us. For all we knew, we’d be stuck like that forever, unable to cry out or tell anyone who we were, just made to work as slaves for the rest of our lives.”

“Well, shit,” Bartolomeo said with some gusto, blinking incredulously. “No wonder Gambia was so happy to see me. I’ll have to make sure he gets to meet Luffy-senpai before we all leave, to make it up to him.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’ll totally make up for hours of mind-crushing existential despair,” Bluegilly said sarcastically, having no idea of the nature of the Barto Club.

“Speaking of Straw Hat,” Ideo said to divert the topic, “I don’t see him or any of his crew in here. Is King Riku keeping them safe upstairs or something?”

Bartolomeo grinned impishly and shook his head. “Nope, the king’s got nothing to do with it! I know exactly where they are, they’re totally safe so you don’t gotta worry about it.”

“How come _you_ know?” Bluegilly pressed. “And how’d you get in so good with him when you didn’t have the same reason for following him that we did?”

Bartolomeo looked about ready to burst into sparkles on the spot. “Because he’s my _idol_ , dammit! My whole reason for being at sea in the first place! Luffy-senpai is the man who’s going to become the Pirate King and now that I’ve seen him with my own eyes and heard him say he’s counting on me, I know it for a damn fact – he _will_ be Pirate King! And I got to protect him with my own body, and protected Robin-senpai with my barrier, and even if I didn’t get the chance to win the Mera-Mera fruit for him and give it back to him as a precious memento of his brother, at least I know it’s in good hands now so even just being here on this island with him was worth it!”

Both fighters leaned in closely in interest, and they were conscious of Suleiman and Abdullah nearby also listening in. “Who was that guy?” Ideo pressed.

There were actual tears of joy running down Bartolomeo’s cheeks. “A truly great man! Who I didn’t even know existed but I got to witness a bittersweet reunion that happened right in front of me! I mean, you saw his name on Doflamingo’s marquee – that was the Revolutionary leader Sabo. But to Luffy-senpai, that man is his long-lost brother who he thought was dead!”

Bluegilly and Ideo recoiled in surprise, and the gasps around them indicated who all was eavesdropping to catch that. “He had another brother?” Bluegilly repeated. “No way.”

Ideo peered at the pirate captain. “You’re serious? You saw this happen, you’re saying it’s all true.”

Bartolomeo sniffled back his emotions and nodded vigorously. “I swear! See, no fingers crossed.” He held his hands straight out to prove his honesty. “I was standing right there when they met, and even though I don’t know the whole story of why he was presumed dead and how he came back at just this time, I swear to you that’s what they said to each other. He agreed to take the Mera-Mera because Ace was their brother, so it was up to him to inherit his will, and I promised to help him before we went into the ring.”

“Huh,” Bluegilly remarked. “All that _and_ a dramatic family reunion. This week can’t get any weirder.”

“That’s good to know,” Ideo muttered. “You’re a real fount of information, Bartolomeo. One more question, then: who took down Dellinger?”

Bartolomeo made a bit of a face, lips curling around a fang. “Eh, that was Cabbage. Or at least, his other side.” His eyes shifted to shoot Cavendish a sneer across the hall from over his shoulder, but the famed captain had his back to them and didn’t notice. “Half of him is a super-scary bastard you don’t wanna run across, he was the one who slashed Dellinger to ribbons. And then he went after Robin-senpai!” he added with more anger, sitting up sharply. “But she stopped him, which left me to deal with Gladius all by myself.”

Both fighters regarded him for a moment, since that was completely new to them. Considering what they knew of the notorious super-rookie sitting in front of them, the fact that he hadn’t yet crowed about taking down Gladius seemed odd. “Did you get him?” Ideo prompted. “I mean, you had to have…he was down for the count at the end.”

“Yeah, I did,” Bartolomeo said modestly, almost disappointed to have to say so. “Asshole blew himself up, but I contained it in a barrier. Almost slit his throat but I missed, so I punched him out instead.”

Ideo and Bluegilly looked to one another, consulting silently on whether to believe the story. There had to be more than that to it, perhaps they could ask Cavendish later when he had the time. “So you’re one of our big heroes of the day and you’re not even taking credit for it,” the Longarm noticed.

“Yeah, you’re being unusually decent today,” Bluegilly said suspiciously, narrowing his eyes. “This is a far cry from the way you acted in the ring.”

Bartolomeo blinked at him like it hadn’t even occurred to him that his behavior was any different. “Well yeah, back then we were all enemies. But now we’re brothers, and I don’t talk shit about my brothers.”

“Brothers,” Ideo snorted. “The hell do you mean?”

“Brothers of the ring! Geez, don’t you guys know anything?”

“Is this some kind of pirate thing?” Bluegilly prodded.

“Nah, nah…” Bartolomeo leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and scrutinized them each in turn. “You really don’t know? When you put your life on the line in a fight, even if you fight against each other, it bonds you. We went way beyond that, we fought together as one team and put our lives on the line for each other. It may not be some kinda vow or something, but it’s still a bond you can’t dismiss.” He thumbed at his bandaged chest. “I got your backs, you get mine. It’s that simple.”

Ideo stared back at him, though the dubious shade of his frown evaporated and left him looking solemn. “But we’re not pirates, Bluegilly or I. The rest of you might be criminals, but we’re just martial artists.”

“Maybe you were yesterday…” A fangy grin slowly filled Bartolomeo’s face. “Tell me you don’t feel any different today after what we’ve been through – together.”

Ideo brushed it off with a huff under his breath, while Bluegilly sat back on his hands, taking it coolly. “I don’t suppose the Marines are going to differentiate between us when they come hunting big bounties. It won’t matter where we came from or whether we’ve even done anything wrong if we all fought together and backed each other up.”

“Even against an evil creature like Doflamingo?” Suleiman muttered from nearby, no longer hiding his eavesdropping.

“Don’t forget,” Bartolomeo said, tipping his head toward the war criminal, “up until he got punched out by Luffy-senpai, Donquixote Doflamingo was a fucking warlord. The Marines were backing him, or at least letting him go free. Call me crazy but I don’t think they’re just gonna let it slide that the bunch of us had anything to do with his downfall.”

“More likely than not, they’ll be after us for our past crimes and not anything done on this island.” Sai walked over to join them, his long cape fluttering behind him. “But at the same time, I wouldn’t be surprised if they scooped up you two along with the rest of us and sorted it out later.”

Ideo looked up at him. “Then why haven’t they barged in here to do it, yet? King Riku must be protecting us somehow.”

“More than you know.” A new voice intruded as King Elizabello rejoined the fighters, having changed from boxing gloves and torn clothing into a clean shirt and trousers, though still wearing his royal cape and crown. “But that isn’t why the Marines aren’t here. Good to see you all up and around, is everybody feeling better?”

Bluegilly tipped his head way back in order to look straight up at the tall, brawny king and his ever-present shadow, Dagama, directly behind him. “We had a visit from the Tontatta princess, so you could say that. But what do you mean?”

Elizabello smiled confidently, looking far more royal than he had in the ring or the ensuing fight. “King Riku has decided not to betray the lot of you no matter what, I was prepared to intercede on your behalf but I didn’t need to. You put your lives on the line for his people, that’s a debt he will be repaying for a long time. As for the Marines, well, they just haven’t moved at all. Nobody knows why, Admiral Fujitora isn’t saying anything, but they’re staying in their camp down by the south port and only moving out to assist the citizens with their cleanup and rebuilding.”

“Yeah, that’s what our ships report, too,” Sai affirmed, folding his arms gruffly over his bare chest. “There are warships out in the water but none of them are approaching ours. I’ll bet when Orlumbus gets done talking to his crew, he’ll say the same thing.”

Bartolomeo nodded briskly. “My ship, too. They’re standing off near the east port but…nada, zip, zero.”

“It’s strange,” Elizabello remarked, “but you shouldn’t take it for granted. It might be just for today, but come nightfall or tomorrow morning, they could have new orders from headquarters and have to act.”

“And of course,” Jeet said flippantly, “you get off totally free on account of being visiting royalty, don’t you?”

Elizabello grinned wryly. “Of course. But Prodence is a member kingdom of the world government, they have to be nice to me even if I did cause incredible property damage and assaulted a warlord’s crew. It’s a bit different for you lot, which is why King Riku is adamant that the Marines not be allowed to capture a single one of you – or Straw Hat, his crew, and Trafalgar Law.”

“It’s real nice of him,” Sai grumbled, “how dare he be so damn generous?”

“Strategically speaking,” Dagama interrupted while his lord laughed, “you’ll want to keep an eye on the movements of the Marines. There will come a point when King Riku can no longer protect you, and will have to allow them into the palace or risk losing his whole kingdom. You’ll need to be ready to move before that moment.”

“Already on it,” Bartolomeo lazily assured, digging a finger in his ear.

“Oh yeah?” the tactician challenged. “Are you sure you have all the possibilities covered and the contingencies planned for? Unless that’s what you were talking about when we came in, with Ideo and Bluegilly being free to walk out of here whenever they want.” Something occurred to him, making him brighten up in interest. “Ah, you know there could be a tactic there…”

Bluegilly shot him a suspicious frown. “I’m not doing your dirty work a second time, Dagama. You still haven’t paid me for the first time.”

“I know, I know, don’t worry,” Dagama insisted with a flap of his hand. “Now that we’ve recovered our things from the coliseum I can pay you for your part in B Block. A deal is a deal, even if we didn’t win in the end. But I’m not looking to hire thugs this time, that’s not what I mean.” He pointed at the two martial artists resting up against the wall. “Sai has a point, but I wouldn’t expect the Marines to move in on you if the two of you walked out of the palace by yourselves, out of our company. We may be able to use that to our advantage.”

“What do you mean, _we?_ ” Cavendish challenged, folding his arms over his chest. “You and the king can walk out of here free anytime you want. You’re not like us.”

“But we all fought together, and just like my friend Riku, I won’t forget that,” Elizabello said seriously. “If I can offer you Dagama’s talents to come up with a way to allow the bunch of you to safely leave Dressrosa before the Marines can catch up to you, it’s the least I can do.”

“You really think it’ll come to that?” Bluegilly sniffed, looking pointedly up at Cavendish and Bartolomeo. “You guys have already managed to duck out of the palace and meet your crews. It can’t be that difficult.”

Bartolomeo gave him a fanged frown in return. “It’s only a little easier now because the Marines ain’t even looking this way at the moment. That doesn’t mean I just strolled out through the front door.” He tugged importantly at the front of his jacket. “I got plenty of experience from my mob days, I know how not to be seen by the authorities when I want to. You gotta be sneaky. Which is all fine for one man at a time, but if it’s all of us trying to beat it at the same time?” He thumbed over his shoulder. “And what about Hajrudin, eh?”

Hearing his name, the giant turned his head and squinted through the archway to where they hung out in a knot to consult. “It’ll be another day or two before I can even move enough to escape, if that’s what you mean.”

“The trouble is, you don’t know when the Marines are going to come for you,” Dagama pointed out. “Tonight, tomorrow, a week from now…it could be at any time. And when they do, they’re not going to just send one little squad. The names and bounties here mean that once the king can no longer protect you, there’ll be battalions of Marine soldiers surrounding the palace, and they’ll move so swiftly that you won’t have time to slip off sneakily one by one like Bartolomeo.”

“There will most likely still be innocent civilians sheltering here, too,” Elizabello said darkly. “They could get caught in the crossfire.”

The pirates and mercenaries looked warily around at each other. As ruthless, bloodthirsty, and wild as they were, none of them particularly wanted to see the innocent people of Dressrosa suffer for another minute longer. Surprisingly, all of them had some shred of standards. “So the only solution is to prepare an escape ahead of time,” Cavendish reasoned, “and employ it the minute we get word that the Marines have started to move.”

“I’ll help you as much as I can,” Dagama said, “but getting to your ships is on you.”

“We’ll have to include Luffy-senpai and the Straw Hats in that plan,” Bartolomeo insisted. “Right now they’re resting and don’t know what’s going on in town. Their ship isn’t even here, they’ll need a ride.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” Orlumbus declared.

While the others started throwing out ideas, Ideo closed his eyes and did his best to ignore it. He wasn’t a pirate with a reason to run from the Marines, so even if these fighters considered him a part of their group, it really had little to do with him. Dagama’s idea that he and Bluegilly could leave the palace unmolested and be used to pass messages or set up an ambush seemed reasonable, but at the same time, Ideo silently wondered what was keeping him there with them besides his injures. Another treatment or two from the Tontatta princess and he would be able to move about just fine and heal on his own, he would be free to leave Dressrosa on any ship at that point. Yet, even as he told himself that, he wasn’t sure he liked the sound of it. He didn’t have any bonds of friendship with any of the other fighters, he didn’t even really know them since pirates’ reputations rarely warranted his attention, yet perhaps Bartolomeo’s assessment was true and something about fighting and almost dying for each other had connected them in some subtle way. He sort of cared what happened to them, at least insofar as making sure they all got off the island safely. And then he could leave and…what? Go back to the Central Fighting Tournament and keep fighting like before? Again, he felt something cold deep inside, a sense of disappointment bordering on revulsion. He didn’t understand what about his normal way of life seemed to ring so hollow now, but it was hard to think about it with the others chattering in his vicinity. He silently pushed himself up using the wall and got to his feet, making the conversation ebb around him. He waved a hand to implore them to go back to what they were doing. “I’m just gonna stretch my legs a bit.”

It was good to get up and walk, his sore limbs were getting stiff from sitting around on the stone floor. Ideo hobbled past Hajrudin and on down the hallway, making a circuit of the high-ceilinged rooms in the heart of the castle rampart that currently housed all the homeless citizens who were out working on cleanup and rebuilding. After a bit he decided to test Dagama’s theory and headed down to the main gate, finding it easy to slip among the castle guards and step outside the door. Warm afternoon sunlight fell on the great golden field of sunflowers just off to the side of the wall, but Ideo realized as he looked at them that he hadn’t recovered enough to walk that far. He was already tired and his abdomen ached from the strain of holding himself upright all the way down from their safe room. He stood for a bit letting the sun fall on his face, watching the comings and goings of average people along the new road that had been trampled down along the various routes he and the others had taken to climb the terraced plateau. Ideo didn’t know who had undertaken the effort to cut a genuine road down from the top to the third level, but he could see the sloped path made by Cavendish from the second to the third, and in the distance other roads and paths forming where people could find footing around the holes made by the fighting and the spikes left by Pica. He didn’t envy the people of Dressrosa the monumental task of trying to make some sense of all that mess, their palace had been dragged halfway across the island onto a new hill which was now battered and ruined as well, and they had no way of simply shifting all that stone back into its rightful place with the culprit now arrested and held by the Marines in seastone chains. It was a staggering sight even a day later. Ideo leaned on the wall for a bit until he felt capable of climbing all the way back up into the palace, and then turned and slipped back inside unnoticed even by the guards. In fact, they seemed to be deliberately turning a blind eye to his presence. He managed to get partway upstairs before needing to rest again and sat down on the edge of a step to collect himself, though he had only been sitting a couple of minutes when he heard Bluegilly’s voice right behind him. “Stretched ‘em a bit too much, did you?”

Entirely unsurprised by the interruption, Ideo looked over his shoulder to find the Longleg standing at the top of the stairwell with arms folded over his chest, looking back down at him with a mix of amusement and exasperation. “What do you care?” he shot back, eyes narrowing.

Bluegilly did not answer directly. He made his way casually down the steps to where Ideo sat and tapped a toe on the next step up. “You were taking too long to get back. I asked, somebody had seen you go down to the door.” His wry expression sobered. “See anything interesting?”

“Nothing worth reporting,” Ideo shrugged. “The others still talking about escaping?”

“Some. Orlumbus and Cavendish are really into it, but the Happo guys had something they needed to take care of.” Rather than sit with him, Bluegilly reached down to offer a hand up to the Longarm boxer. “C’mon.”

Ideo eyed his hand and then all the way up the length of his arm to his face. “I don’t need your help.”

“Bullshit, just come on already.”

He didn’t seem to be relenting, so Ideo sighed and stretched up to meet him, accepting the leverage to get back to his feet. Bluegilly was taller by about a head, so rather than shoulder him, he simply offered an elbow for Ideo to lean on if he needed. Together they walked back without a further word to one another, until they came up to Hajrudin. There, Ideo drew to a stop and ignored the tall shadow who stuck by him. “Hajrudin…”

The giant had his eyes closed but wasn’t sleeping, and squinted one open at being addressed. “Ideo. Bluegilly,” he greeted both of them.

Ideo looked him over briefly, noting the astounding quantity of bandages seemingly holding Hajrudin’s body together. “How’re you doing?”

“I’m not dead,” Hajrudin grunted, flashing a brief smile. He didn’t look nearly so fierce with his helm off, though still rather unruly with hair and beard wild and dirty. “Thanks to the dwarf princess, I can move my arms again. The next time she comes to visit I might be able to feel my legs.”

“I heard that guy really did a number on you,” Bluegilly said seriously. “Wish I could have seen you punch him into next week.”

“I don’t know that it was anything worth seeing,” Hajrudin said modestly, rolling onto one shoulder to be able to look at them as they chatted. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to continue on past that.”

“You did more than enough,” Ideo encouraged, folding his arms loosely over his chest as if to protect it, or maybe hide the bandages swathing him in a similar fashion. “You took out an executive, that’s more than I can say for myself.”

“In a battle like this,” Hajrudin said wisely, “it isn’t about who defeated who. What matters is we all did our part. Each and every Doflamingo peon we took out was one less to stand in Straw Hat’s way.”

“That’s pretty generous of you, considering you tried to take him out in the coliseum,” Ideo snorted, smirking a little.

The giant eyed him coolly. “As did you, Ideo. But what happened in the ring yesterday morning has no bearing on what happened on the battlefield yesterday evening. Things change.”

Ideo meant to keep on smirking, but he dropped his head suddenly, closing his eyes. “Does that go for what I did to you, also?”

Both Bluegilly and Hajrudin stared at him, as they had both been unconscious at the time. “I don’t remember you landing one of your Destruction Punches on me,” Hajrudin said thoughtfully, rubbing his beard.

“Yeah, well, I…” Ideo rolled his shoulders stiffly, doing his best to avoid meeting the giant’s gaze. “…kind of punched you out of the ring after Straw Hat already knocked you out.”

“Dick move,” Bluegilly retorted, and it wasn’t easy to tell whether he was impressed or disgusted.

“Oh, so that’s where the bruise on my side came from,” Hajrudin grunted. “I was wondering about that. No,” he went on immediately, “I don’t care. It’s not against the rules so whatever. Like I said, things change. It’s been a full day since we were rescued and brought above ground to keep fighting, so much happened that I can’t even be mad about anything that went on in the ring.”

“Gee, everybody around here is such a nice guy,” Bluegilly quipped, scuffing a hand through his hair like he didn’t care. “Calling each other brothers, letting bygones be bygones. Next thing you know we’ll all be hugging and dancing together.”

“Not likely,” Ideo scoffed, his smirk returning.

Hajrudin grinned widely at them both. “I heard you guys talking to Bartolomeo. It doesn’t matter where you came from or why you wanted to be here, you’re one of us, now. Deny it all you want but you know it’s true.”

Neither martial artist wanted to revisit that argument all over again. Bluegilly skillfully changed the subject. “So what’s your line, then? Why does a giant need a Devil Fruit?”

Ideo remembered the giant roaring something about a goal during their match, but Bluegilly had already been taken away to the infirmary at that point so he hadn’t seen anything of the C Block fight. Hajrudin sobered and looked straight at him. “Where I am now is not where I want to be the rest of my life. I have high aspirations. My crew and I are working for someone right now, as mercenaries, but my pride as a warrior of Elbaf won’t let me be content with that.”

“Crew,” Ideo repeated. “You’re a pirate, too?”

“Technically,” Hajrudin answered with another flash of his large teeth, all repaired now thanks to Mansherry. “The five of us are working together, but we don’t have our own independence. I wanted to raise my level so that I could proudly call myself their captain and break us free of our current boss. I’ll be humbled, having to return to them empty-handed, but maybe I didn’t need the Devil Fruit after all. Maybe,” he said heavily, “what was more important was seeing how far I could go. I fought against a warlord’s forces and took down one of his executives at my current strength and capability, that’s more than I expected. Would the Devil Fruit have actually gotten me further than that?” 

It was clearly rhetorical, so neither of the martial artists answered, but the pensive frowns both took on showed that they understood the question deeply. Ideo shook his head slowly. “At least you know where you’ll be going once we get off this island. Your comrades are probably waiting on you.”

Hajrudin peered at him. “What, and you don’t? I would have thought you were going to go back to the tournament circuit and not have to worry about anything but your championship title.”

Ideo shrugged again with no clear explanation. A short, silent pause emphasized the non-answer, and both of the others looked at him for a long moment. At last, Bluegilly broke the silence, stepping forward to rap Hajrudin on the arm with his knuckles. “Rest up, then. If your legs are still trashed, you’re not going to be able to do much else till tomorrow anyway.”

“Fine by me,” Hajrudin said contentedly, raising one arm to curl under his head – it was the only real movement he could manage in the corridor even with its high ceilings. “As long as those cute palace maids keep bringing me food, I’ve got nothing to complain about.”

Ideo turned and walked away first, but instead of going back to his spot along the adjacent wall, he meandered through the group of fighters and over to the window. They had a good view of the sunflower field from there, and off in the distance he was sure he could see another hill covered in thick grass and tall flowers, a few trees at the edge, completely untouched by the Birdcage. Just a few small spots on the entire island of Dressrosa had escaped the destruction, and stood now like beacons of life amid the rubble. Ideo sat on the windowsill to rest and silently look out at the world as it now lay below them, and for once, Bluegilly left him to it. He, in turn, was more interested in the ongoing discussions of the best ways to escape the palace when the time came, and flopped down at the edge of the ring formed by Orlumbus, Suleiman, Cavendish, and Dagama, all of whom had certain experience in tactical situations and understood one another on that level. They were still talking about ships and ports and disguises and surveillance when Tank came down to invite them to join the royal family for dinner. It seemed King Riku was intent on thanking them for protecting his people in one more small way, besides just giving them shelter and keeping the Marines off them. Because Hajrudin was unable to walk, yet, Elizabello asked that a table be set up there in that room for them, so that Riku, Rebecca, and Viola could join them. While the preparations were made, the town doctor and his team returned to change bandages and check up on progress, so that everyone who wanted to sit at table with the king was actually able to do so. Fortunately, talk around the dinner table was not about the fight or the outcome, but mostly about the fighters themselves, where they came from and how they found Dressrosa prior to the tournament. Aside from an icy distance put between Viola and Baby 5, it was a delightful way to spend an evening in the ruined palace and put the minds of the fighters at ease. The only matter of some concern shared among them was a warning from Viola, who had discovered in her own reconnaissance that the Marines knew full well that the pirates and criminals from the coliseum were inside the palace. Riku’s hasty extension of assistance to them had not been as stealthy as he might have liked, somehow the Marines found out anyway. It still didn’t answer the question of why they weren’t moving to arrest anyone, but it was enough to push the group of fighters to seriously consider how they were going to get away no matter who they were or where they wanted to go.

While Rebecca lingered to talk to Bartolomeo about a certain Straw Hat both of them worried about, Riku found himself surrounded by townspeople returning to their shelter in the palace, and for a while the whole floor was a hubbub of activity as people eagerly came to talk to their rightful king, thank him and shower him with attention no matter how much he insisted he did nothing but give a couple of inspirational speeches during the worst of the fighting. He tried to pass off credit for the victory to the fighters in the room behind him and the Straw Hat pirates recovering in secret somewhere in the country, but his people still lauded him and considered it the highlight of their night to be able to speak with him directly. The noise and press of bodies was too much for Ideo, he slouched off as soon as he could make a break for the door and disappeared to go roaming through the castle rampart looking for somewhere quiet. Most of the corridors inside the palace had returned to normal after Pica had gone outside into the cobblestones of the city to manipulate them instead, so Ideo found himself walking alone down long, smooth, echoing stone hallways, doing his best not to fall too deep into contemplation lest he stumble down a dark stairwell or turn down a dead-end. At last, he seemed to be genuinely alone, none of the others had gone after him. Yet, the further he walked, the less he enjoyed the silence, for it made it too easy for his mind to latch onto dark thoughts and dwell on worries with nothing to distract it. The palace itself didn’t help, for many of these corridors were growing quite dark, no one was lighting lamps in unused areas and none of these passages had windows. A glimpse of cool light ahead drew Ideo’s attention, and he wandered off to see what it came from.

Night had fallen and the moon was shining brightly, illuminating anywhere it could slip in through stone walls and shuttered windows. This corner of the rampart tower was not like the rest – during the battle it had been sliced cleanly through at a diagonal, walls, floors, and even furniture all at once like a giant scalpel had cut away and removed the top part of the rampart. Ideo came to a door hanging off its hinges from all the shockwaves and looked through to see the floor end abruptly about ten feet into the room, and paused there to gawk a bit at the immensity of the power and control needed to cut a whole building like that. He didn’t know if this was Doflamingo’s strings at work again or not, but it didn’t look like the gouges left in the ground and the walls by the Birdcage – it was too clean. He had no way to know that this was actually Trafalgar Law’s doing. Stepping to the edge of the floor, he looked out on the wide landscape of Dressrosa laid open to view with no walls to obstruct it, glowing softly blue and silver in the moonlight. The remains of the room on this level was completely open to the elements, but the weather was still fair so it didn’t seem to be a problem yet. He could see down into the room below which only had a corner of its ceiling and walls cut away, and then looked up to see that the diagonal continued up another few floors, all the way to the rampart rooftop and battlements. There was a bookshelf along the wall that had been cut through on that angle, and sliced books scattered their pages all over the floor, fluttering feebly in the meager breath of wind that still stirred in the twilight. Further back the room was completely undamaged, a desk sat near the door showing no signs of disturbance even though the shelves next to it had been bisected. Ideo stood at the edge of the cut floor to look out into the night for a bit, feeling much better than he had earlier with a good rest and good food to sustain him, and the view successfully distracted him from his thoughts. He didn’t hear the soft step of a flat-soled shoe on the threshold of the room, but then came a small gasp and an awed murmur. “What in the hell happened here?”

But of _course_ , it was Bluegilly – again. He had just made it to the room and stopped in the doorway, taken aback by the scene of destruction the same as his comrade. Ideo glanced back at him and made a bit of a face. “Why do you keep following me everywhere?”

“Because,” Bluegilly answered flippantly. He shook off his shock at seeing the room laid open to the night sky and focused on his real reason for prowling through the castle, stepping into the room. “Easy answer? I’m bored and I wanna hang out.”

“Hang out,” Ideo repeated as he turned fully around to face him. “With me.”

“Pretty much.”

“Why?”

Bluegilly shrugged as he eased closer, meandering idly through the damaged room. “It’s like you said to Bartolomeo, earlier. We’re not like the others – we’re not pirates or bounty hunters or gangsters, we’re just martial artists who fight in tournaments.” He had Ideo’s full attention now, and met his suspicious peer with a casual but knowing look, one corner of his mouth barely teasing at a smirk. “We’re not like any of them, but we’re like each other. Just you and me.”

The Longarm held his gaze for a long moment and finally eased off with a small sigh, turning slightly away. “Maybe so. But you hardly know me, and yet you just keep showing up right behind me everywhere I go. Are you really that hard up for company?”

He moved toward the desk in the corner, looking for a chair and finding none, while Bluegilly’s eyes remained locked on him. “Don’t tell me you’re actually bothered by having another person around,” he sniffed. “If you want me to leave you alone to sulk, just say so.”

“I’m not sulking!” Ideo glowered at him and then asked himself why it made him so angry to be accused as such. After all, he was the one looking for an escape from his thoughts. He judged the desk as good a place to sit as any and hopped up onto it, sitting with legs dangling over the long side facing the opening where the wall used to be so he could still enjoy the nighttime scenery. “Anyway, you’re the one stalking me, not the other way around. If you wanna stay, stay, I don’t care. I’m just gonna sit for a while.”

Bluegilly waited until he had settled and looked like he really was just going to sit there and not care before coming over and sliding onto the desktop next to him, leaving enough space between them so as not to appear too clingy. “Fine, then I will. You had your chance to kick me out.” His legs were long enough to fully touch the floor even seated there on the sturdy desk, hands curled around the edge on either side of himself. “You’re the kind of guy who likes to be alone, aren’t you?”

“It’s not really…that…” Ideo looked down to where his hands dangled between his knees, his gloved fingers tapping idly against each other. “I’m not used to people just wanting to hang around with me. Everyone on the tournament circuit is wrapped up in their own business, they don’t get friendly when you could be bashing someone’s face in later. I’m not complaining,” he added quickly lest he be mistaken for angsty pining. “It is what it is. Especially when you’re the champion. Nobody wants to rub shoulders, all they want is to be the one to take you down.”

Bluegilly blinked at him. “What, no groupies? No gold-diggers latching on to your fame? I would have thought being the champion, you’d have all kinds of hangers-on trying to get famous just by brushing up against you.”

“Oh, they try,” Ideo admitted with a shade of wryness. “But I’m not so easily fooled. I don’t want any part of that, I’m only interested in hanging around other fighters who I can talk shop with, that sort of thing.” He finally understood why the Longleg was so eager to stick close to him and chanced a small smile as he looked back toward him. “Like you.”

Bluegilly gave him an impish smirk in return. “So I’m allowed to stay, then?”

“Yeah, sure, why not.” The Longarm reached up to shyly rub the back of his neck. “You’re not bad company, really.”

“Nice of you to finally notice,” Bluegilly teased. “It’s not like I’m trying to win you over or anything, I just don’t have anyone else to talk to at the moment.”

Ideo studied his open, earnest face, thinking back to their conversation earlier that morning. “So, what…you’re alone? I didn’t even consider you’d just be here by yourself. I mean, I heard the crowds at the coliseum screaming your name when I was watching B Block. I hadn’t even heard of you before yesterday morning at sign-in, but people already know you.”

“Heh, it’s nothing to be so mystified about,” Bluegilly replied with a wide grin. “I always get the women screaming for me, whether or not I rank in the tournament. The rest come around later after they’ve seen me in action. At least, not being a champion yet, they’re just after my looks rather than any fame, but it doesn’t really matter to me. _You_ might find it a lonely life,” he added, “but I like the popularity. I know it’s shallow but I figure, as long as I’m okay with it, what’s the harm?”

“No real harm I guess,” Ideo huffed under his breath. “Win yourself at least one championship and then come back to me and tell me how much you enjoy the hangers-on.”

Bluegilly gazed at him with some amusement. “Boy, you just can’t find anything to be happy about, can you? Being a champion sucks, being so powerful sucks, fame sucks…is there _any_ thing you like?”

Ideo rolled his eyes as a means of looking away to avoid his gaze. “C’mon, cut me a little slack. I’m tired, I hurt all over, and I’ve got nothing to do besides cower inside this palace like I’m some kind of criminal even though we’ve said ten times over today that we’re _not_. I’m just not in the mood to be optimistic.”

“So that’s it, huh?” Bluegilly stretched his hands out behind him and leaned back. “Pessimism has you grouchy. Or are you just grouchy all the time and I wouldn’t know it because I’d never met you before?”

“I’m not grouchy all the time,” Ideo grumbled. “I was having a great day yesterday until getting thrown out of the ring. It’s so embarrassing,” he added with a shake of his head, “the two-time New World champion going down to a ring-out. I’ve never had a ring-out in my whole fighting career.”

“Yeah, but look who threw you out,” the Longleg offered. “Who actually did it, Don Chinjao or Straw Hat?”

“Chinjao,” Ideo grunted in reply. “Which, I guess in hindsight, I can’t really complain after watching the two of them have it out for the win. But ring-out is such a cheap way to lose.”

“Against a pirate strong enough to punch the shit out of Doflamingo and a former 500-million bounty?” Bluegilly nudged him. “The stakes were far higher than the New World Central Tournament. I mean, at that point who was still left in the ring?”

“Me and Sai, that’s about it,” Ideo begrudgingly admitted. “Sure, maybe Straw Hat would have punched the shit out of me too, but at least I would’ve gone down fighting.” 

“That’s what pisses you off, isn’t it?” Bluegilly noticed. “It doesn’t matter that the tournament was all for show and none of us were going to get the Mera-Mera, or that Doflamingo ripped this entire island to shreds in an attempt to massacre all of us, you’re pissed because you landed in the water.”

Hearing it laid out in comparison like that made Ideo’s lips twitch with a scowl he fought hard to suppress. He really had no right to feel anything about the tournament, good or bad, considering that his loss either way caused him to be turned into a toy and enslaved with no hope of redemption. Yet, he still had those thoughts, and couldn’t help but match his performance in the coliseum to his performance on the life-or-death battlefield later. They were two sides of the same coin as far as he was concerned. “It’s not that at all,” he explained, his voice dropping. “Yeah, I’m annoyed, but I do have some sense of perspective. I mean, look.” He tossed one hand up toward the view facing them courtesy of the missing rampart wall. “I know full well what happened here, I’m not dismissing it.”

“You can probably take heart that the tournament itself won’t even be written up in the papers,” Bluegilly said dryly. “I got my hands on this morning’s edition, there was a huge story about Doflamingo’s arrest and the destruction of Dressrosa. Not even a single footnote that there was a fight for the Mera-Mera involved. No one will ever know except the spectators that actually saw it.”

Ideo tipped his head to the side to concede that that was a very good and somewhat heartening point. “Shame, really. There were a lot of really good fights, no one outside this country will ever know about them.”

Bluegilly rubbed one of his bandaged legs idly. “So you watched B Block,” he noted. “Tell me, how bad did it look, really?”

“What, when you took that King Punch point blank?” They were talking shop exactly as he wanted, which brought a bit of light back to Ideo’s expression. “Painful. I’m betting it felt about the same as me taking Chinjao’s fist in the gut.”

The Longleg let out a loud, exasperated sigh. “Painful is right. I can’t even get mad, it was my fault for completely underestimating the guy. I was sure I was fast enough to get a kick in to deflect him before he threw it, but no. At least he got everyone else with it except Bartolomeo, so…small favors.”

“From where I was watching, even I could tell the Prodence guys were up to something,” Ideo remembered. “What was all that about? And earlier, you said something to them about getting paid…”

“Oh, that.” He looked to the man beside him and hesitated until Ideo glanced to meet his eyes, finding him serious. “You’re not gonna get on my ass about bribes, are you?”

“Why should I? I know everybody backstage was paying everybody else off to get the best brackets and team up with their friends.” Ideo’s lips twisted in a wry smirk. “I’m not exactly an upstanding citizen either.”

Considering he’d remarked on Ideo’s assholery earlier, Bluegilly decided he was sincere and forged on with his story. “Dagama was going around paying the small fries to serve as an army to ‘protect’ the king while he charged up his punch, and of course they were all going for it since they took one look at who else was in this tournament and figured they’d never get anywhere near the finals. Why not pocket some cash at least, right? Only I saw through him right away.” His eyes narrowed as if unimpressed with the so-called strategist. “He wasn’t doing it to protect Elizabello, he was doing it to round up as many of the block as he could to put them right in the path of that punch. So when he came around to me, I called him on it.”

“And that was it, huh?”

“Yeah. I mean, think about it.” Bluegilly raised a hand to gesture while he explained. “If his punch was so powerful that it could take out the whole damn coliseum like that, why wouldn’t he have been charging it up throughout all of A Block, so that it’s ready to go right at the start of our round? Because for all its power, it has a limited range. There was no way he could have gotten all hundred and thirty-some contestants in one punch, only those right in front of him. He would have exhausted his one good move and been vulnerable.”

“And since all it took was one hit from Bartolomeo’s barrier to knock him clean out, that would have been the end of their aspirations,” Ideo realized.

“Right. So when I saw through his real plan, Dagama offered me a different deal. Pick off as many of the small fries as I could, and he’d serve me up whoever was left at the end. I mean,” Bluegilly said flippantly, “I knew he’d stab me in the back anyway, and really, why the hell should I do his grunt work for him and then stand there to let myself get hit with the King Punch? But at the time I didn’t know it was really that powerful like the rumors said, so I decided I’d take his money and then turn on him before he could turn on me, and take out Elizabello myself.” He shrugged broadly. “He’s still going to pay me even though we both had plans to screw each other over, so I guess it’s not all bad. Getting punched like that is still on me.”

Ideo shook his head slowly as he digested the whole tale, and understood the complete picture he had seen from up in the viewing stands. “Maybe the others are right, and fighting alongside each other changed things,” he said solemnly. “King Riku was nice to you even though you destroyed him in the ring, a backstabbing jerk is going to play fair on his promise to you, Hajrudin doesn’t care that I punched him while he was down…”

“Makes sense, doesn’t it?” Bluegilly sat up and crossed one long leg over the other gracefully. “In the light of how everything played out in the end, anything we did to each other early on doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Not even when we were all still shoving each other out of the way to get to Doflamingo first.”

Ideo sat up sharply at that and rounded on him. “You elbowed me in the face over that!”

Bluegilly flapped a hand dismissively. “I don’t remember who I all elbowed and kicked. Probably everybody. Nothing personal, Ideo.”

“Yeah, well…” Ideo had also done his fair share of snarling in faces and punching rivals out of the way, so he had no room to talk. “It’s all in the past, like everybody keeps saying.”

“He would have killed us, you know. Doflamingo,” Bluegilly said rather bluntly. “We sure did talk big about taking him down, but after seeing how Trafalgar and Straw Hat came out of that fight, there’s no doubt he would have killed every single one of us. Even Chinjao, and Hajrudin. Not even the big names around us would have been able to hold their own against him.”

Ideo met his eyes once more and felt the sobering truth of it wash over him in that moment. “Considering both of them have Devil Fruit abilities. And haki. And they still got shredded to within an inch of their lives…”

“Kinda makes all that arguing seem completely pointless, now,” Bluegilly remarked.

“You’re right. No matter how hard we fought, none of us would’ve been able to even stand in front of Doflamingo, let alone beat him. We’d be dead, our debts unpaid.” Ideo stared hard at the floor, grimacing to himself. “All that big talk about how we’d help him, hah! More like we were just in his way.”

“We helped,” Bluegilly insisted, nudging him with an elbow. “You more than me, but the rest of us played our part. And here we are, alive to talk about it.”

“Yeah, I guess.” But what Bluegilly said matched up with Ideo’s dark thoughts, which were starting to coalesce into a realization he wasn’t sure he was ready to make. Existential doubts never went over well, particularly for a man who had never had reason to doubt himself at all until yesterday. He sat pouting without further word for a bit, hardly noticing when his comrade likewise went silent, contemplating the slumbering world out beyond the lack of wall. The moon crested the top of the palace and shone down into their private spot, painting the floor before them in blue and silver and leaving their backs where they sat together on the desk in shadow. It was tranquil in a way that the half-demolished room and the ruins of Dressrosa beyond had no right to be.

Bluegilly privately contemplated the downturn in mood and let his new friend be for a bit before coming up with a change in topic, one that would hopefully raise spirits. “So, it sounds like the others are trying to have a plan ready to go for getting out of here anytime. Just in case the Marines make a move tomorrow or something. You’re in, right?”

“Eh?” Ideo shook himself out of his reverie and glanced his way. “In, how?”

“At the very least, ready to get out of here.” Bluegilly peered at him. “I don’t know if there’s gonna be any ships coming in or leaving in the next few days besides the pirates, so it sounds like we’re better off hitching a ride with one of them.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Ideo said quietly. “Yeah, whatever they’re doing, I’m in. Just tell me where to be and hope I can move my arms by then.”

Blue eyes softened with genuine concern. “Just how bad is it? And don’t put on the brave face with me, you know I don’t care. I’m not gonna mock you.”

“It’s more the treating me like glass I don’t want,” Ideo grumbled, but he looked up to meet that gaze and thought back to Bluegilly ensuring he got treated first. There was no coddling coming from him at all, and even now he simply looked serious. It was worth a little honesty. “The stomach wound hasn’t reopened,” he admitted, “but it’s taking a lot out of me. I’ve been sore all over after a hard match before, but this is…like that times ten. Times a hundred, maybe. When the Tontatta princess comes again tomorrow, I’m putting that flower right here.” He patted the tight wrapping of bandages around his abdomen.

“You can have mine,” Bluegilly offered, rubbing his throat. “I’ve already healed my worst injury, I’d feel bad if I sat next to the rest of you still aching all over with all my injuries gone.”

Ideo stared hard at him and then tried to brush it off with a dry laugh. “I don’t need charity.”

“It’s not charity, asshole, it’s a gift from a friend,” Bluegilly said harshly.

A pulse of shock went through Ideo at that word. _Friend_. Really? Just because they had a few things in common didn’t make them friends. Rather than argue, though, he simply sank further into his personal darkness, wondering what about him could possibly be worth befriending. He let his arms dangle in his lap and sat hunched, not wanting to meet that astute gaze any longer. “Either way,” he mumbled, “as long as the Marines give us another day or so, I should be healed up enough to fight again. That is, if Dagama and the others think it’ll come to fighting.”

Bluegilly ignored his mood swing. “Consensus is that if it comes to running from the Marines, yeah, there’ll be fighting,” he explained. “Kind of depends on the timing and the situation. Orlumbus says he’s got more than enough room on his ships for passengers if we need.”

“And then we’ll be out of here,” Ideo said in conclusion. “I guess we can go back to having a normal life after this.”

“What are you going to do now?” the Longleg wondered openly. “Go back to defending your title with just your arms?”

“I don’t know.” Ideo turned his gloved hands up in his lap and gazed sullenly at them, contemplating whether they were enough for him to get where he wanted to go. “Tell me something, Bluegilly…what’s the point of being a champion when there are so many people out there who’ll never set foot in an arena but can still kick your ass ten different ways without breaking a sweat?”

Bluegilly stared at him, not expecting such a morose and nihilistic thought out of him. “What kind of question is that?”

“I wasn’t expecting an answer.” Ideo dropped his hands for a moment, as if they weighed a ton each, and then began to pull the gloves off. He set them between the two of them and lifted his bare hands into the moonlight. They were thick and powerful to match the rest of his build, but callused in places, the knuckles knotty and gnarled from being scraped and bruised hundreds of times over his lifetime. In fact, they were bruised right now from yesterday’s fighting, yellow and purple spots showing where he had used his signature punch a few too many times. Curling his fingers loosely into fists, he considered how far they had carried him and wondered if he was simply being maudlin after a brush with death. “Doflamingo’s executives were stupidly powerful. Trafalgar Law, Pirate Hunter…even Straw Hat himself. They’re all so much stronger, it takes my breath away just to think of watching them fight the way they did.” One particular memory of the battle came to mind and he almost laughed in disbelief. “When I saw him use that technique to smash the head off the big Pica statue…I traded punches with him in the ring and still had no idea how much he was holding back. Even against Don Chinjao, he only fought as hard as he needed to, he didn’t waste energy. He punched the fucking head off that stone man and laughed, like it was so easy! I can’t even hope to match him at my current level.”

Bluegilly’s eyes were drawn to the flex of his bruised fingers. “Yeah, that was a hell of a sight…”

“He has Conqueror’s Haki, you know.” The statement came quick and blunt. “You weren’t there, you didn’t see it. Right after Sai and I got thrown out of the ring, he and Chinjao clashed and it was…” An expression both impressed and disturbed creased Ideo’s brow as he stared past his hands at the floor. “I felt it hit me like a punch in the chest, it was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. They were both using it at the same time as they held each other off.”

“I’ve heard that Conqueror’s Haki makes you faint. You didn’t…?”

Ideo considered that with a bit of surprise for himself. “No. I could feel the shockwave of it, but I didn’t lose consciousness. People in the stands were dropping like flies, right behind us, and even some of the fighting fish in the moat got knocked out, but both Sai and I were fine.”

“That’s pretty impressive,” Bluegilly said, blinking absently. “It’s not everybody who can say they’re strong enough to withstand that kind of exposure to it.”

As much as he knew that to be true, Ideo shook his head vigorously. “It’s not enough. The battle yesterday showed me clearly, I’m not anywhere near close to their level. I gave it everything I had, but compared to the others I’m just a wet-behind-the-ears rookie who had no business being on that battlefield.”

“Shut up,” Bluegilly said sharply, shifting his gaze from Ideo’s bruised hands to his face. “If anybody had no business being there it was me, I got taken out in one hit – but you don’t hear me complaining. I wanted to be there, I _needed_ to be there, so I went. Whatever small part I played in helping Straw Hat out is enough for me to be proud of.” He prodded a finger sternly into Ideo’s arm. “And that goes double for you. You went into it without second-guessing yourself, you didn’t care, you just ran straight into the thick of it. Don’t give me this rookie shit, you’re just as much a dangerous powerhouse as any of those pirates.”

Ideo glanced his way, a little astonished at the unexpected pep talk but the words sank in through the mire of darkness all the same. “What’s with all the compliments?” he asked warily.

Bluegilly pouted strongly. “Don’t get any ideas, it’s not like I look up to you or anything. But you’re selling yourself way too short. I’m only telling the truth – those pirates and other gangsters didn’t chuck you and me out for not being one of them, they treated both of us like we belonged. They knew better than you do, you thick-headed asshole.” This time his poking finger prodded at the side of Ideo’s head. “And we held our own with them – with Suleiman the Executioner, White Horse Cavendish, and a man whose bounty was five hundred million before he retired. You kept fighting on even after Hajrudin fell, so don’t give me that ‘I’m not strong enough’ nonsense.”

Ideo endured the poking until he finished speaking and then fended him off with a wave of his hand. “All right, maybe you’ve got a point. But even if that’s true…” He drew one leg up onto the desk and then turned enough so he could sit facing his companion. “…it doesn’t change the fact that they’re stronger than I ever imagined. I thought I knew what it meant to be strong, but my eyes have been opened. I don’t know _shit_.”

Bluegilly’s lips twisted in uncertainty. “Is that what you want? This morning you talked about the Devil Fruit, but didn’t really say why you wanted it.”

Ideo nodded. “That was my goal. To be stronger – to be on the top. I’ve never been happy just resting on my laurels or staying on the same plateau. I’m triple-X ranked, there isn’t anything above that to aspire to. Two-time champion of the Central Fighting Tournament? I can’t go any higher than that as a prize fighter. But yesterday, I saw with my own eyes what true strength is.” Those eyes blazed in the moonlight with renewed determination, and he banged a fist on the desk next to his knee. “I might have been able to keep up with Sai in the ring, but when we were out there fighting for our very lives, I could see he was actually stronger than me. Most of them are. And they keep getting stronger, they don’t have anything holding them back except death itself. That’s what I want, Bluegilly. I can taste it now, real strength – it’s not measured by belts and championships, it’s facing the kinds of challenges they put themselves through on a daily basis and coming through it alive.”

Bluegilly swiveled to mirror his position, resting his fists on the desk and leaning on them. “Is that what you want out of getting stronger? To be able to match Straw Hat Luffy and the other pirates?”

“I didn’t think so before yesterday,” Ideo sighed. “Not specifically. I just wanted to be stronger, but I didn’t have any idea what that meant. All I know is that I yearned for it with every fiber of my being. Now that I see that the ‘top’ is thousands of meters away from where I thought it was…” He pursed his lips thoughtfully as if trying to mentally pursue an answer he could feel flitting just out of his mind’s reach. “I don’t think, knowing what I know now, that I can ever be satisfied just being a tournament boxer any longer. If I want to actually become stronger, I have to be part of that wider world of life or death challenges.”

Bluegilly’s lips curled into a bemused smile. “You want to become a pirate, is that it?”

Ideo nearly shot off an answer, but then he had to stop and think about the question. His eyes dropped to search the surface of the desk between them, his hands, his gloves, Bluegilly’s legs curled there, and then eventually dragged their way back up to the Longleg’s face. “If it comes to that. Real enemies with real strength are out there on the sea, especially here in the New World where four Emperors are in charge. Think about it, Bluegilly – we faced a warlord who almost killed us, and the Four Emperors are even stronger than he is.”

The way he spoke sent a shiver up Bluegilly’s back. Something in his words sparked him with the same longing, even though his own dreams were still half-formed and didn’t drive him quite as fiercely as the Longarm boxer’s clearly did. “That’s what it means to put your life on the line,” he murmured in awe. “Like you said this morning, we don’t really face death in the tournaments. Yesterday, we went from the usual bullshit to the real thing in the space of just a few hours.” For a moment they both looked absently away, privately wondering what it all meant, if they could bring themselves to take that last step that seemed just out of reach. Bluegilly’s gaze flicked up rather suddenly, then, his blue eyes hard and fierce. “The New World is said to be Hell, for pirates and anyone on the sea,” he noted seriously. “Between the Emperors and the Grand Line itself. It hasn’t looked like Hell to me so far, but I haven’t gone very far yet.”

“I’ve been in the New World for a few years,” Ideo said plainly, “but I haven’t seen its hellish side either. Most of the places I’ve gone for tournaments have been like this place was as of yesterday morning.” He tossed a hand idly toward the view of Dressrosa, no longer looking so beautiful. “Makes me kind of wonder just how thick the wall is between tournament fighters and the reality of life in the New World. That wall is holding me back, I have to break through it somehow.” Something occurred to him, then, making him lift his eyes curiously to Bluegilly’s face. “What about you? What do you want out of life, anyway?”

“That’s a good question.” The Longleg rubbed the back of his neck, shifting his gaze away while he thought. The moonlight brought out the violet tint to Ideo’s hair, it was very distracting. “Maybe we’re not so different at all. I haven’t made any kind of long-term plans or even set a goal besides maybe knocking you out of the champion’s spot someday, but I don’t have the kind of passion for it deep down that you do. I like the spotlight and the popularity, but not as much as I like really testing myself against the odds. I never really thought…until just now, hearing you talk about what real strength is. I feel like I understand that on a deeper level, for once in my life.”

Ideo chanced a small smile. “Guess we really are two of a kind, huh?”

“Maybe so,” Bluegilly conceded with a shy laugh. “I wish I could say I was as focused as you are, though.”

“I dunno, watching you fight, you looked pretty focused to me.” Now that they were genuinely growing closer, becoming friends, Ideo found it much easier to honestly compliment his comrade. “You’re good. Real powerful, most of those small fries you took out in one hit. That’s the only way to survive the battle royal-style fights, one-hit as many as you can before turning to the real challenges.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Bluegilly said dryly, taking on some of his usual smugness as he waved a hand in dismissal of the advice. “Point is, I’m not a champion yet. And since I didn’t get the chance to face you, the jury’s still out on whether I’m strong enough to beat you yet.”

Ideo lowered his head slightly, smirking to himself. “I could give you that chance,” he suggested, “but would it mean anything? If you want the same things I want, you’ve got a long way to go and I’m just the first stepping stone on the path.”

Bluegilly held his gaze for a moment and then dropped his head completely, avoiding that keen look of brown eyes gleaming in the moonlight from overhead. His confidence waned, and he sat drawn inward on himself, fists still on the desk in front of him and shoulders hunched as if to shrink down and protect himself from the truth. “I don’t know what I want,” he admitted quietly. “All I know is everything you’ve said in the last few minutes hit me right in the heart like a punch. You’re so sure of yourself, I want to have that kind of drive and determination. A goal, a plan, a dream…”

“Are you kidding?” Ideo scoffed. “I came up here tonight because I’m _not_ sure of myself – or anything anymore. I don’t know how to move on from here, my life doesn’t make sense anymore.”

“That’s not how it sounds to me.” The Longleg pushed himself up on his fists and then reached across to grab Ideo’s wrist. “If you go…take me with you.”

“Huh?” Ideo sat up sharply, blinking at him and the view of tousled blue hair still obscuring the other man’s eyes. “What do you mean…?”

“All that talk about the wider world, the one where pirates ten times stronger than we ever thought we’d be fight their life-or-death struggles. I wasn’t teasing, it sounded like you were saying you were going to go out to sea and become a pirate just so you can fight with them. And I want to go with you.” Bluegilly was dreadfully serious, far more than at any point yet in their many conversations. He finally lifted his head, blue eyes like sparks in the darkness. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Ideo’s face grew tight again, but this time with the dawning dread that Bluegilly was right. He could hem and haw all he wanted, claim he didn’t know and couldn’t decide, but he’d already spoken of it. Real enemies with real strength on this very sea, out beyond the edge of the island where they currently sat. The answer was right there in front of him, so to speak, if he had the courage to reach out and grasp it. Finding himself strangely heartened that Bluegilly understood him so perfectly as to lead him right to that conclusion, Ideo shook his head. “You’re not,” he finally responded. “It’s crazy though, isn’t it? I mean, neither of us have ever lived at sea before, or anything…”

“Maybe, but what choice do we have? You said it yourself, you won’t be satisfied as a tournament fighter anymore. If you drop out and hit the sea, I won’t be able to ever knock you out of the champion’s spot anyway so I might as well come along.” Bluegilly withdrew his hand and clawed it backwards through his unruly hair, trying to compose himself like he hadn’t just exposed an emotional vulnerability to this man. “I know we only just met but…dammit, Ideo, everything you said was right. We’ve already learned too much, we can’t just go back to the old life we knew before yesterday.”

“Then, let’s do it.” Ideo sat up and held a hand up between them as if requesting either agreement or an arm-wrestling match. “Let’s go out to sea together. You and me. Two martial artists who want to live a real life of strength and freedom and not be tied down to piddly little tournament matches and small-potatoes opponents.”

There was no hesitation before Bluegilly clasped his hand in agreement. “You and me. We’ll put our lives on the line and get stronger, strong enough to be mentioned in the same breath with Straw Hat and the others.”

“That’s right.” A new light of determination had come into Ideo’s eyes, and a genuine joy filled his entire being. The darkness of despair brought on by defeat and pain had vanished at last. “Course, I don’t know _how_ we’re gonna do it but who cares? We can figure that out later.”

“Preferably before we leave.” The Longleg smirked at his barely-hidden excitement. “Guess that means we’re taking Orlumbus up on his offer to give us a ride out of this place. Think they’ll teach us how to be pirates?”

Ideo cackled loudly. “Maybe! I bet if you ask Bartolomeo he’ll give us the lowdown, with all the hidden meanings and the rules and, I don’t know, the secret handshake or something.”

The ridiculousness of two martial artists abandoning their old lives and turning pirate hit Bluegilly all at once and he matched that unsteady laughter. “I wouldn’t put it past him and his crew to have one. Oh, our crew…can you call it a crew with just two people?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“We need a name. All the other crews have names.”

“Uh…” Ideo scratched the back of his neck idly. “Let me think about that one. We don’t even have a ship yet! One thing at a time, Bluegilly, geez.” He laughed it off, shaking his head. “I’m not doing all the work myself, this is your idea too. You’re right there in it with me.”

“Of course I am. What, you think I wanna let you have all the glory to yourself?”

“Glory,” Ideo snorted. “I don’t care about fame, just strength.”

“But in the world of pirates, the two go hand in hand. Guess we’d better make a name for ourselves, then,” Bluegilly grinned, “when we become the strongest Longarm and Longleg pirates in the world. Wouldn’t that be something?”

“It would.” Ideo’s matching grin turned dangerous. “We’ll be even more famous than we ever were on the tournament circuit. That should make up for you missing out on any popularity in the ring, huh?”

Bluegilly wagged his eyebrows suggestively. “You read my mind.”

They sat together on the desk and joked about their new life as pirates for a bit longer, while the moon climbed even higher and stood overhead, glimmering down into their private hiding spot. When Ideo yawned, they both decided it was probably a good time to head back to the room where they were supposed to bed down and strolled through the empty palace corridors together, side by side with no sign of pain or weakness in either. A powerful friendship had blossomed between them, and as they walked back, still chatting casually about their plan, Ideo found that he really did like the Longleg fighter. He was more than just a powerful martial artist, he was friendly and charismatic and intelligent and not some airheaded young punk who spent more time batting his pretty eyes at the women in the audience than training his skill. Despite what he might have said in a moment of humility, he had a strong sense of self-confidence and a bold, forward bearing. And, given what he had told of his dealings with Dagama, he was shrewd and had a good read on people and situations. Not only would he make a good crewmate, Ideo thought to himself that he’d be happy having a friend like this in his life. “It’s not going to be a problem, is it?” he asked as they neared the high-ceilinged room full of refugees. “Just picking up like that and going out to sea.”

“Nah, I don’t have anything tying me down,” Bluegilly assured. “I don’t even have a manager, I’m just out here by myself. What about you?”

“Same,” Ideo sighed. “I’ve been on my own for almost three years, now. No family, no nothing. Hell, I lost my bags when the hotel got destroyed, so I don’t even really have a lot of material possessions to my name now.”

“That’s kind of sad,” Bluegilly said in pure sympathy. “Well, you’ve got me, now, for what it’s worth.”

Ideo clapped a hand to his shoulder as if to guide him through the doorway into the room. “That’s definitely something.”

Most of the other coliseum fighters were already asleep or trying to be, stretched out here and there on the floor or leaning up against the wall. Cavendish was already chained for the night and lying half-awake with his cheek pressed to the stone floor, pouting to himself, but his eyes shot to the movement of the two missing from their number as they waded through sleeping civilians to reach their fellows over in the corner near Hajrudin’s hallway. He waited until they were close enough to hear a low murmur before speaking. “You two look like you’re having a great time,” he grumbled, though with a hint of interest. He had noticed Ideo moping earlier in the day, and then the two of them disappear for hours and come back in such high spirits? It warranted some curiosity.

Bluegilly held a finger to his lips to caution the famed captain to quiet down lest they wake any poor, tired Dressrosans. “The best, really,” he said flippantly, pausing to let Ideo choose where he wanted to sleep and then following after him. “Tell you all about it in the morning.”

  


Sleeping sitting up against the wall might have been better for Ideo’s gravest injuries, but it made for an uncomfortable night with little real rest – now that the exhaustion and blood loss were no longer a factor it wasn’t so easy to simply let himself pass out. He did get some sleep, at least, because even though he knew that Bluegilly had lain down near him at the edge of the group, he woke up to find his new friend curled up against his leg, drooling on his own shirtsleeve as he snored away with his own arm as a pillow. As annoying as it was, Ideo also found some amusement in it. It was kind of nice having someone want to actually be around him for fun and not for profit. Still, he nudged the Longleg to get him to roll over and not be so clingy, and then tried stretching out his legs and scooting around to find a better position in which to try to snatch another hour or so. Dawn had only just barely broken, a dim gray light warmed the windows but otherwise everything around him was still dark and a symphony of snores indicated that everyone sheltering in the hall was still asleep. When he snapped alert again it was with the strange sensation of having been so deep under that it seemed like only an instant had passed, but the daylight streaming in through the windows was much stronger and people all around him were moving and talking with the energy of being completely ready to go about their day. Lines were already forming for breakfast and everyone else was up and about, even off on errands. The coliseum fighters remained somewhat on their guard until well after breakfast when Leo arrived with another bag of donation-flowers from Mansherry and verified what Bartolomeo’s information had already suggested – that the Marines still were not on the move, none had been seen in the vicinity of the palace and not even the admiral himself dared to visit. “I’ve got an eye on ‘em,” Bartolomeo assured the others as Leo went around offering his bag to each one in turn. “They won’t get the jump on us no matter what.”

Ideo took his dose when offered and immediately did as he vowed and pressed it to his abdomen where Dellinger had gored him, breathing a huge sigh of relief when that tightness and pain disappeared in an instant. A hand holding another glowing fluff pinched between thumb and forefinger hove into view in front of him, and Bluegilly murmured, “Where do you want it?”

Ideo looked to him, surprised that he was also making good on his promise, but he remembered that Bluegilly wasn’t as severely hurt as the rest of them and genuinely didn’t need it, so it was better not to waste the princess’ power. “Right side, lower part of my ribcage,” he said quietly, trying to keep the extent of his damage from being public knowledge. “I know they’re broken, I didn’t need the doctor saying so. It’ll be easier to fight if I can twist and wind up.”

Nodding, Bluegilly laid his hand over the ribs indicated, pushing the glowing flower into him through the bandages. He held there until Ideo’s chest expanded with a much more comfortable and natural breath as if to prove that the broken ones had been healed. “That’s a hell of a power,” he remarked. “We’re gonna miss it when we’re gone. Better?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Ideo breathed, relaxing and resting his arms on his knees. “I’m finally feeling up for punching some Marines if need be.”

“Well, you two are looking a hell of a lot friendlier than before.” Orlumbus came over and plopped to a seat next to them, looking rather pleased with himself for no discernible reason. “You were out and about pretty late last night, I hear. How’s about it, Bluegilly, did you manage to talk him into helping with the plan?”

Bluegilly sat up, looking vaguely perplexed like he hadn’t heard that it was supposed to be his responsibility to do so, brows knitting slightly. “Ah…well, I guess you could say I sort of did, but there’s a lot more to it than that.” He looked to Ideo, then, wondering if he’d rather spill the news.

The Longarm took his cue almost seamlessly, meeting his comrade’s eyes for a moment before shifting his gaze to Orlumbus. “I heard you were offering us a ride out of here if we needed it.”

“That’s right…” Orlumbus could tell they were up to something. “There are fifty-six ships in my fleet, we have more than enough room to take on a few stragglers if you have no other choice. What’s the matter, got somewhere to be and don’t think I’ll take you there?”

“It’s not that…” Ideo and Bluegilly shared another knowing look. “We’ve decided…the two of us, we’re setting out to sea. As a crew. We’re giving up tournaments and becoming pirates together.”

Orlumbus sat back with wide-eyed surprise that quickly morphed into a pleased grin. “Really! Well, now, that’s unexpected. So you really are one of us, now!”

His loud reaction got the attention of several others. “What do you mean, one of us?” Cavendish queried.

The commodore thumbed at the two martial artists, who cringed a bit at their news getting out so quickly and bluntly. “These two are forming a crew! Looks like pirate life really rubbed off on you, eh?”

Bartolomeo strode over, chest thrust out proudly like he had anything to do with it. “What did I tell ya? You can’t escape it, man. The pull of the sea, the call to risk your life for something awesome and follow your dreams…”

Ideo flushed slightly, since that was closer to the truth than anyone else realized. “Yeah, well, putting that aside. We don’t have a ship of our own or anything else, so we’re gonna need help. But in turn, we’ve got your backs too. I’m with you, to get us all out of here safely. Thanks to Leo’s princess, I’m in a position to fight again.” He nodded his gratitude to the dwarf, who had hopped over to see what all the fuss was about.

“Good, good!” Orlumbus slapped a hand to his own knee. “All the better, since I already had an idea for where you’d fit best in our escape plan.”

“Well it’s not like I _wasn’t_ gonna help, even if we hadn’t made this choice,” Ideo said with a slight frown. “Just. We don’t need a ride to some safe little harbor somewhere, now, we’re going out on our own instead.”

“Where are you gonna get a ship?” Bartolomeo pressed, keenly interested.

“Dunno yet,” Bluegilly admitted with a big shrug. “We’ll figure shit out, c’mon – we only just decided late last night.”

“What made you come to that choice?” Abdullah murmured curiously as he prowled closer.

“Lots of things,” Ideo said gruffly. “Does it matter?”

“Not really,” Cavendish agreed with a cool smile. “Except that you’ll be starting out a level below everyone here. We all gained notoriety and bounties before getting to the New World – well, I suppose, excepting those who came from this sea,” he added with a glance toward Suleiman, who was listening to everything from a short distance away.

“They won’t stay that way for long,” Orlumbus said with a somewhat proud smirk. “Not if they keep fighting like they did here.”

“I don’t give a shit about notoriety,” Ideo said brashly, slapping a hand to his knee and squinting up at Cavendish. “I’m already popular enough as a fighter and it doesn’t mean shit. Pirates are stronger than anyone I’ve ever faced in the ring, so I’m going out there after them, simple as that.”

Cavendish flushed a little at the reminder that the Triple-X ranked boxer was already famous in certain circles, while Bartolomeo just laughed. “That’s right! If you wanna stand shoulder to shoulder with the big boys, you gotta get out there. It doesn’t matter where you start, as long as you go after it with everything you’ve got.”

Suleiman peered at him. “When did you start giving pep talks instead of insults?”

Leo looked from one big human to the next, eyes sparkling. “Pirates are so cool! At least you guys are, you’re much better than the pirates who used to come here when Doflamingo was in charge.”

Orlumbus, Bartolomeo, and Cavendish all puffed up in their own ways from the admiration. “Don’t compare us to those small fries,” the latter said with a suave grin, flipping his hair over his shoulder. “We’re absolutely better than them.”

Ideo and Bluegilly shared a dry look. “Maybe I don’t wanna be lumped in with these idiots after all,” the Longleg snorted.

“Too late. Choice is made.” Sai thumped over, using his pike as a walking stick. “You’d better stick to it like a man and not give up, either of you.”

Ideo glanced over his shoulder at the Happo commander. “Not a chance. I want to be in a position to fight you again, sometime.”

Sai nodded his approval. “Go out to sea and you’ll get it, that’s for sure.”

They chattered for a bit more about the call of the sea and the potential adventures waiting out there, until Leo practically swooned from all the stories and had to excuse himself lest he get his head filled with too many tales of glory and mayhem. He had more duties to attend to as it was, though he was vague on what they were and simply promised that it was all to keep the coliseum fighters and the Straw Hats safe. Once he was gone, Sai turned more seriously to the others grouped around. “So where are we with the plan, anyway? Any news?”

“Marines are still at the south port.” Bartolomeo patted his jacket, intimating that he might have had a den-den mushi in his pocket. “I’ve got somebody watching them, we’ll get an update the instant they move.”

“Now that we know for sure that Ideo and Bluegilly are coming along with us…” Orlumbus gestured to gather all of them around him so they could conspire together. They sat near enough for Hajrudin to listen in, and he was already well enough to roll over and lean on an elbow to peer over Sai and Boo’s shoulders. Dagama was no longer with them to help out, but he had already done more than enough to prepare them for the terrain and the potential snags, so they could simply finalize their intentions here and now. “From what I hear from my crewmen, Dagama was right – the east port is our best bet,” the commodore informed them. “There’s fighting fish in the waters near the north port, bigger ones than were in the coliseum, so east is as far away from the Marines as we can get. And, it’s the closest to our current position.”

Cavendish was in charge of keeping the map, so he brought it out from inside his coat and laid it out in the middle of their circle. “So those of us with our own ships should direct them to anchor at the east port?”

“There’s not a lot of room, there isn’t even a pier,” Bartolomeo warned with a scowl. “I don’t know where the supervisor here is gonna tie up fifty-some ships, let alone the rest of us.”

“That’s commodore to you,” Orlumbus sniffed. “And I’m not going to. I have an idea.”

The others leaned in even closer as he laid out his thoughts – no one wanted to get boxed into the port, not with the Marines capable of sailing around from the south and cutting them off before they could escape. Among those present, they would be dealing with a minimum of four or five flagships as it was, not all of them could fit at the little rocky inlet serving as a harbor. The commodore had a unique idea, though: with the sheer number of ships in the Yonta Fleet, they could easily anchor stem to stern and form a bridge from the shore all the way out into the ocean some distance. He claimed to have done it at least once before so they had the equipment and formation capability, and guessed that if he lined up all the small Nita Marias first, then the Santa Marias, the flagship itself could be miles out to sea and far away enough that the Marines would have to work to try to catch them. The Barto Club, the Beautiful Pirates, and the Happo Navy’s eight ships could all anchor around it, bolstering the fleet and making for a safe haven for their own captains to meet them. For a moment the others looked to one another, wondering if they could believe it, and then Hajrudin let out a laugh. “That’s brilliant! I love it. And you’re not worried about the bridge coming under fire?”

“If we time it right, all of us and Straw Hat and his people will be halfway out to the _Yonta Maria_ by the time anyone with the capability to destroy the bridge is even in range.” Orlumbus tapped a finger onto the map. “That means all of us have to be ready to move and doing what we agreed to do, and we can’t hesitate for anything. It’s on me to get my fleet into position, but it’s on the rest of you to do what we talked about.”

Sai reached in to point and explain the rest to Ideo and Bluegilly, who needed to be caught up. “We split into two teams. One moves on the east port to keep the Marines from taking it and holding it against us, the other spreads out along the route to make sure everybody gets there. Mostly, Straw Hat and his crew.” He shot Bartolomeo a wary look. “You’re sure you’ve got that handled?”

“Absolutely!” Bartolomeo crowed confidently. “I’ll see to it personally that they get from where they’re hiding to the east port. Leave it in my hands, you just worry about your crew and the rest of the plan.”

Orlumbus nodded to the two martial artists facing him. “The east port is where you come in. Ideo, would you be part of the group that goes there to stop the Marines from blockading us?”

Ideo blinked and then nodded firmly. “Can do.”

“We’ll be there too,” Jeet said eagerly. “Abdullah and I will get your back.”

“The rest of us will deploy in a relay line from the base of the plateau out to the port,” Sai confirmed, “and fall in with the group as soon as they pass us. Any sign of Marine pursuit, move in and cut them off. But watch out for civilians, there might be some in the area that didn’t get ripped up by the Birdcage.”

Ideo noticed one crucial point as he listened and compared their directions to the map. “So basically, this plan isn’t so much to get _us_ to the port, as it is to get Straw Hat to the port. Otherwise, we’d all just head there whenever we felt like it.”

The various pirates looked at one another knowingly. “You got it,” Bartolomeo answered for all of them. “We got to talking and figured he needs as much time as possible to rest up – and, their ship isn’t here right now. The bunch of us helping each other get to the east port, well, that’s a breeze. Wouldn’t even break a sweat. But he’s still out there resting up and only by some dumb luck hasn’t been targeted by the Marines yet. He’s got no idea what they could do to stop him from leaving this island.”

“And in the end,” Bluegilly interjected, having listened in on that part of the plan already yesterday, “we still haven’t paid our debt to Straw Hat. We did what we could, but he still saved all of us from the Birdcage, so we owe him and his crew all over again.”

Hearing that, Ideo sat up sharply, realizing that it was true. Even with all their own contributions to the fight, taking out the executives and pushing the barrier, helping the citizens and so on, Straw Hat Luffy still took the finishing blow to end it all. If not for him, they would have all perished in the end, even after doing everything they could and fighting to the end of their strength. Ideo remembered laying half-conscious on the cobblestones, hearing the grinding of the strings cutting through stone and screeching against Bartolomeo’s barrier as those who could still stand desperately tried to get it to slow down. He had fallen again when the emergency treatment wore off and was nothing but an obstacle, then, a useless lump of flesh who couldn’t get up and keep going any longer. In that moment he had been in the same strait as all the civilians of Dressrosa, incapable of doing anything but watch, wait, and hope in desperation. Had Luffy not managed to pull it out, those strings would have massacred thousands, including him and all the men around him. He nodded slowly in full understanding. “We all have that in common,” he said solemnly. “All of us want to protect him and his crew, the way they protected us. Right?”

“Indeed,” Orlumbus grunted.

“To a man,” Suleiman murmured.

“We’ll never repay our debt if we don’t,” Cavendish added.

“You guys are the best,” Bartolomeo said happily, leaning back on his hands. “I’d do anything for him, but to hear that all the rest of you want to as well. It almost makes a guy want to cry or something!”

“Please don’t,” Bluegilly said quickly.

His eyes may have stayed dry, but Bartolomeo was caught in the throes of another Straw Hat-related fantasy, grinning with fangs bared as he tipped his head back. “It would be so great to be a part of his crew! But I’m not even gonna get the chance to ask him, if we wait until the last minute and then just all escape here. Shit! We’re not even gonna get to hold a victory party, are we?”

“Why wouldn’t we?” Orlumbus grinned toothily. “My flagship is well stocked, why don’t we hold the party there after we get away? If the rest of you captains wouldn’t mind, that is.” He swept out an arm invitingly. “The main deck is big enough that even Hajrudin can come aboard comfortably.”

“Good, because I don’t have a ship here either,” the giant mused. “My four comrades planned to bring the _Nagalfr_ to meet up with me, but aren’t here yet.”

“Damn, how many people am I giving a ride to?” Orlumbus wondered, gesturing around the circle. “You two, and Jeet and Abdullah, Hajrudin…Suleiman?”

The sullen warrior shook his head slowly. “I’ve already made arrangements of a sort.” He shifted his glance sideways to Cavendish beside him. “I’m joining up with this guy.”

The blond captain sighed to himself. “If you’re really going to be part of the Beautiful Pirates, you’re going to have to work on that scowl of yours, you know. It’s not beautiful at all. But yes,” he added for the rest of the group, “it’s true. I’m taking Suleiman on, so that’s one less thing to worry about.”

“At least the Beautiful Pirates, the Barto Club, and the Happo Navy all have their own ships,” Orlumbus said ruefully. “The rest is on me since I already opened my big mouth and said I’d take them all.”

“Just until we get off Dressrosa,” Bartolomeo cut in. “I know something of what they said about where the Straw Hats’ famous _Thousand Sunny_ sailed off to, so I’m gonna offer to take them to meet up with it.”

Cavendish rounded on him. “Why do you get to? Just because you’re some kind of mega fanboy…”

“Because I said so!” Bartolomeo gnashed his fangs right back at the famed captain. “Like I said, I know where the rest of their crew has gone! You didn’t even bother to find out that much so don’t offer what you can’t provide.”

He couldn’t exactly deny that, so Cavendish backed down and sulked, folding his arms over his chest. Sai straightened up and banged his pike on the floor. “I’m sure all of us want to be a part of that,” he said gruffly, “but some of us can’t just go traipsing off wherever we’d like. As Don of our Navy I’ve got responsibilities, now, we gotta get back to Kano pretty quick.”

“I need to meet the rest of my crew,” Hajrudin agreed, “and make some decisions.”

“We have a lot of work to do just to get started,” Ideo said seriously.

“Is this really going to be our farewell, then?” Orlumbus looked around the circle again. “And here I was just getting to like you guys.”

“If we go our separate ways,” Suleiman said darkly, “we will no longer be comrades but enemies.”

“Shame, isn’t it?” Abdullah said with a shake of his head. “But I guess that’s the way of it with pirates, huh?”

“It doesn’t have to be.” Bartolomeo sat up sharply, setting his hands on his knees. “It’s my dream to join the Straw Hat Pirates someday, but there’s other ways of staying connected besides being in someone’s crew.” His eyes slid to Orlumbus, who sat blinking curiously at him. “Like a fleet.”

The commodore realized why he was being peered at, since he sat as representative of his own fleet. “What are you suggesting, Bartolomeo?”

“A fleet?” Cavendish repeated. “Us?”

“Why not?” Bartolomeo sat up even more, rising almost to his knees to address the group. “I was gonna ask him anyway, to see if he’ll take the Barto Club as his allies. But if I do, why don’t you guys join in, too? If you really don’t wanna split up, and become each other’s enemies, that’s the only way.”

“That’s crazy,” Ideo exclaimed. “Half of my reason for going out to sea is to be able to fight the likes of you guys!”

“There are plenty more pirates were we came from,” Sai assured, “and some of ‘em even more powerful than we are. There’s others from the Worst Generation out there, and then the warlords, the Emperors, and so on and so forth.”

Ideo twisted to look up at him, blinking in astonishment, but that was exactly what he himself had said last night when talking to Bluegilly. Pirates strong enough to kill all of the men assembled here and now, probably without having to exert much effort at it, too…

Bluegilly nudged him. “What do you think?”

The Longarm boxer looked straight across at Bartolomeo, looking excited beyond words, and then to Cavendish and Orlumbus in turn, both of whom seemed to be seriously contemplating it. “Sailing under Straw Hat Luffy,” Hajrudin rumbled behind them. “Now that sounds like fun. He’d be a much better boss than the one I have now.”

“Ugh, I’m not the kind of guy who wants to be subservient to another,” Cavendish sighed, “but on the other hand, I do owe him.”

Sai looked to where his brother stood, keeping tabs on this whole conversation with a lazy grin, and then beyond him to Chinjao, who certainly was also eavesdropping without looking like he was. “Can the Happo Navy even do something like that?”

“You’re in command, now,” his grandfather reminded him seriously. “You can do anything you want.”

“Think about it,” Bartolomeo encouraged with grand gestures, even while the Happo commander drew aside to discuss it further with his grandfather. “What happens to most of the weaklings who claw their way into the New World only to see what’s facing them? They wet their pants and then go crawling to one of the Emperors to protect them from the other ones, and give up their own dreams of conquering the Grand Line. Well, I ain’t havin’ no part of that! If the best way to survive this sea is to join up with someone else, I’d rather join up with somebody who’s on his way to becoming the Pirate King – for real, not just blowing smoke up the world’s ass by saying so!” He clenched his fists boldly, eyes sparkling. “You saw him for yourselves, you guys. You _know_ he’s strong enough. He’s gonna do it. What better time than now to get behind him and put the wind in his sails?”

“The Pirate King,” Orlumbus said heavily. “I’ve heard that from so many people over the years, but when you hear him saying it, it doesn’t sound like an empty boast.” 

Cavendish’s blue eyes lit as if with cold fire. “He could actually do it.”

Ideo stared at the floor for a long moment, and then slowly raised his head to take in their various expressions. “But does a man like Straw Hat Luffy really need the likes of us trying to protect him? He’s already so much stronger than us.”

“It’s not about that,” Bartolomeo insisted, hands shaking as he held them out beseechingly. “He’s not like an Emperor, he can’t single-handedly go out there and crush everything in his way. Not yet, anyway. He’s going to need extra ships, extra crew, in the fights to come.” He set his hands on the floor and leaned closer to Ideo, full of energy and an irresistible earnestness. “I heard him and Trafalgar talking. They’re planning to go up against King of Beasts Kaidou.”

Orlumbus, Sai, Boo, Chinjao, Baby 5, Cavendish, Suleiman, and even Jeet and Abdullah all recoiled in shock, gasping and gaping and sweating. “No way!” the Beautiful Pirates captain breathed. “Are they insane?”

Chinjao’s eyes bulged. “Kaidou!”

Bluegilly and Ideo shared a look, for though they had heard the name, they weren’t as acquainted with the notorious Emperor as those who sailed the same seas. “I take it that’s going to be a lot harder than it sounds,” the Longarm mumbled.

“Kaidou the Beast is the closest thing to invincible anywhere in this world,” Orlumbus said warily. “It’s said even Doflamingo is afraid of him.”

“With Doflamingo out of the picture,” Sai added, “the black market dealings he controlled will fall completely apart, and that’s going to really fuck up Kaidou’s long-term plans to conquer the New World. Even if they weren’t already out for his head, he will turn all of his wrath on the pirates who took down Doflamingo.”

“Which, in a way, includes us,” Hajrudin pointed out, “since I haven’t heard a single one of you say anything about running away and avoiding ever being mentioned in the same breath with Straw Hat.”

The group of them shared another collective glance, swept around their circle, and then Ideo banged a fist on the floor in front of him. “Then, since we’re already in it, let’s go in all the way. He can’t win that kind of battle alone, so who better than us to back him up? Again.”

“Well said,” Cavendish enthused. “When you put it like that, I can’t really argue. Besides, we already know we work well with one another.” He thought instantly of an exception and turned an icy glare on Bartolomeo, who seemed to come to the same conclusion at the same time and turned to stick his tongue out at him.

“Give us a minute,” Sai implored, “we gotta work something out.”

He grabbed Baby 5 and Boo and stepped back with their grandfather, while the others finalized their decision. “I’m in,” Hajrudin affirmed. “What better way for the Giant Pirates to re-enter the world stage than as allies of the future Pirate King?”

“Count me in, too,” Orlumbus decided. “If I add my fleet to his, he’ll have insurmountable strength behind him.”

Ideo grinned at Bluegilly, who punched him lightly in the arm. “We may be just a crew of two right now,” the Longleg said brashly, “but that sounds like a great way to get started.”

The only ones who didn’t, or couldn’t, speak up to vocally join in the plan were the two bounty hunters, but they sat hanging on every word from the others. Despite their glaring and gnashing at each other, Bartolomeo and Cavendish broke off and threw in their own commitments. “So counting us that’s…five crews for sure, six if the Happo Navy cast in,” the former noticed. “That’s pretty damn good if you ask me.”

“Think he’ll go for it?” Hajrudin wondered.

“We just have to ask him right,” Bartolomeo replied, completely convinced that his hero would never turn them away. “Maybe propose an oath, like we did back in my mafia days. If he drinks an oath with us, he’ll be bound to it, that’s the way these things work.”

“Damn, that’s pretty hardcore,” Ideo noted. “But then, what part of this idea isn’t? I’m with you, Bartolomeo.”

“And so are we.” Sai and Boo marched back over, shoulders thrown back proudly. “It’s settled. The Happo Navy has its roots in Kano but we’re pirates at the core, like my grandfather before us. We can join this alliance after all.”

Bartolomeo was so fired up he couldn’t stop flailing and punching the air. “Yes! Awesome! Let’s give him a fleet he can be proud of!”

There was some discussion, then, of their ship and crew sizes and other logistical details, up until Orlumbus excused himself to huddle in a private corner with a den-den mushi to consult with his second in command to prepare their ships for the grand plan of bridging the port. They still had no idea how much longer the Marines would just sit around at the south port and leave them be, but it was better to get the groundwork laid so that the plan could be put into action in an instant without hours of fumbling and running around delaying the tactic. The group broke up, then, going to separate corners to take care of their own present needs, whether calling their ships to prepare their crews for this grand new development or looking after their injuries and problems. Ideo got up to stretch his legs and wandered to the window he had been gazing out the day before, and this time when Bluegilly tagged along, he was glad. He set his hands on the windowsill and breathed deeply, feeling an electric thrill run through him. “Tell me I’m an idiot getting caught up in the excitement and this is a bad idea,” he dared his comrade.

Bluegilly gave him a quick snap of a laugh. “If I did that I’d be lying. This is honestly the best thing that could have come out of this.”

“We don’t even have a ship yet. Or a name,” Ideo pointed out.

“I was thinking about that, some, last night,” the Longleg offered. “I didn’t come up with a lot of real great ideas but I was thinking…something that symbolizes both of us, since we’re the founders. Longarm-Longleg is too obvious, I was thinking more like…Champion and, I don’t know, Martial Artist…”

“Hmm…” Ideo rubbed his bearded chin. “What about Triple-X…Martial Artist…Team?”

“Nah, not Team. Alliance?”

“It needs something in the middle.”

“The Triple-X Gym Martial Arts Alliance.” The bold statement came from Abdullah, as he and Jeet approached the pair. “It’s got a bit of a punch to it, don’t you think?”

“Heh, punch,” Jeet snickered.

Ideo and Bluegilly stared at them and then at each other. “It’s perfect,” the Longleg exclaimed.

“Then that’s what we’ll call ourselves,” Ideo decided, with a nod toward the interlopers. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Abdullah assured. “But in exchange, can we ask you guys a favor?”

“What is it?”

“Take us into your crew,” Jeet begged.

The two martial artists startled. “We only just formed it last night, you already want to join it?” Ideo said in disbelief.

“Why not?” Both bounty hunters clasped their hands together pleadingly as Abdullah explained. “We were listening to you guys talk about the fleet and we want to join, too, but we don’t know where else we’d belong.”

“Orlumbus has his shitloads of people already, we’d get lost in the shuffle,” Jeet put in. “We’re not giants so we can’t join Hajrudin, and Cavendish and Bartolomeo have crews with deeply-established ties. It’s tough for newcomers to make a name in that kind of atmosphere.”

“We figured since you guys were brand new to piracy, too, then we’d fit best with you,” Abdullah concluded. “Bounty hunting is only a step to the side of pirates, so we have a little experience, but otherwise we could all be rookies together.”

Ideo and Bluegilly visually consulted one another yet again, and then the Longarm shrugged. “Four sets of hands is probably better for working a ship than just two.”

“I guess,” his Longleg companion conceded, looking back to the pair of bounty hunters. “But here’s the real important question: can either of you guys cook?”

Jeet perked up immediately. “Sure! I do all the cooking when we’re out on the road together.”

Bluegilly rapped Ideo in the arm again. “There’s more to surviving on the sea than just putting up the sails and raising the anchor. We could use that kind of help.”

“All right, then. Consider yourselves inducted into the alliance.” Ideo stretched out a hand, accepting a slap from each of the other two in turn in agreement for joining their crew. “But remember, me and Bluegilly started it. So if we get to where we can recruit more, or anything like that, we’re in charge.”

“I’m fine with that,” Jeet agreed. “Abdullah and I wouldn’t mind at all.”

“Yeah,” his comrade agreed with a laugh, “you can have all that responsibility!”

It seemed with that formation a great number of strange and wonderful things were afoot. By the time another quiet night fell over the palace, not only had their plan for escaping the island fallen completely into place, but so had the fleet idea and their own crews. Of the coliseum fighters who had fought on the royal plateau to support the Straw Hat Pirates, only Elizabello and Dagama would not be joining them for the long haul, since they had a kingdom of their own to run. The tactician came down from the guest quarters where he and the king were staying at Riku’s behest to see how the escape plan was coming along, and approved greatly of the formation of a fleet to back Straw Hat. He knew more than anything that one man’s strength alone wasn’t going to be enough to make it in the New World, particularly now that the political and military climate was going to go completely to chaos and hell. It wasn’t just a matter of countries at war being unable to continue without the weapons provided by Joker’s black market, it was a practical consideration that every pirate, no matter whose flag they currently sailed under, would be looking for the heads of Monkey D. Luffy and Trafalgar Law in revenge. Dagama was enamored of numbers and military might, and the thought of all those ships uniting under the Straw Hat flag practically had him salivating. Once he was assured that the surveillance on the Marine encampment was top-notch and the rest of the plan needed only a signal to be sprung, he wished them all well and let Elizabello have a moment to say farewell to all the strong fighters he had come to admire. They would need to set out for Prodence soon themselves, likely with a Marine escort, so they had to part ways with the criminals and pirates before it was too late. That evening after dinner, a fair number of the refugees who had been sheltering in the palace on the same floor did not return, as enough temporary housing had been found for them in the undamaged parts of the island, leaving the burgeoning fleet alliance sitting together without a civilian audience eavesdropping, daydreaming about their plans and wondering how soon it would be before their benefactor would wake up from his long convalescence and be in any shape to hear their proposal. As they were talking about it, a chirping voice in their midst gasped in awe. “You’re really going to ask to join with Luffyland? That’s so cool!”

The fighters looked down to find that Leo had joined them at some point, slipping in unseen like the Tontatta tended to do. “Oh, Leo,” Cavendish said warmly. “When did you get here?”

“Just now. We brought some extra donation-flowers for Hajrudin,” the dwarf explained, gesturing behind him to where Bomba and Inhel were helping the giant mend the last of his broken bones. “Princess Mansherry said that since he was so big, he might need a second dose.”

“Give the princess my deepest thanks,” Hajrudin said seriously, sitting up as much as he could before his head scraped the ceiling. “I have no way to repay her except my words of gratitude.”

“That means everyone’s as healed up as they can be, before we have to move,” Sai realized. “It would be nice to get one more dose for everyone tomorrow, though.”

“Are you leaving soon, then?” Leo fretted.

“That depends on whether the Marines move in the next couple of days,” Cavendish informed him. “So far, so good. But…yes, sooner or later we will have to leave, Leo. We’re pirates, we belong on the sea and King Riku doesn’t need to risk his country to protect us any longer.”

“I know, it just feels like it’s too soon. And then you’re going to join Luffyland – no, the Straw Hat Pirates. I wish I could do that!” Leo gushed. “They did so much for us, they risked their lives for us. As did all of you, it would be right for us to stand alongside you if we could.”

“Why can’t we?” Bomba wondered as the rest of the Tontatta joined their captain with the others. “I mean, you would probably have to ask Chief Tonta for permission, but he knows how much the Usolanders did for us. He’d understand.”

Cavendish leaned down toward the collection of dwarves. “Can you even go out to sea?”

“Oh yes! It’s not like the Tontatta have never sailed before.” Leo thrust out his chest boldly, hands on hips. “That’s how we came to Dressrosa in the first place centuries ago. We can do a lot of the same things Big Humans can, we’ll show you.”

Orlumbus laughed. “Both giants and dwarves in the same fleet. I think it’s completely appropriate!”

“And Longarms and Longlegs,” Jeet pointed out. “A little bit of everything!”

“So if you get permission,” Bartolomeo said, coming up behind Ideo, “that would make for seven crews in our fleet. I’m thinking we might need to have some kind of order to this, if there’s so many.”

Cavendish pointed at him. “If you so much as say one word about being the first ship, I’ll fight you for it right here and now.”

“Don’t get your pants in a knot, Cabbage.” The notorious pirate waved a hand dismissively. “I was actually gonna say to draw straws or something so that it’s fair.”

All of the would-be captains were present, back from their errands and reconnaissance, so there was no time like the present to do so if the Tontatta wanted to cast in with them. While Orlumbus prepared the fair draw, Sai gestured at the newly-formed Triple-X crew. “So which of you guys is actually the captain?”

Jeet and Abdullah had no say, leaving it up to the two founders to decide. Bluegilly met his comrade’s eyes. “You were the one who actually made the decision. It should be you.”

Ideo’s lips twisted wryly. “I don’t know, I think you were actually the inspiration for the idea.”

“I mean it.” Bluegilly nodded once. “You’d make a better captain than me. You’re probably older than me…”

Ideo made a face. “I’m only twenty-two!”

“…oh. Well, my point still stands.” Bluegilly held up a hand in concession. “You’re a better leader. You’re stronger than I am, too, so…”

“Stronger or not, we formed this crew together. But…” The Longarm looked toward their other two crewmates, who simply nodded enthusiastically like they would have backed either one for the position, and sighed. “All right, if you’re gonna be that way about it. I guess I can be our representative, for now.”

He got up and joined Sai, Bartolomeo, Cavendish, Orlumbus, and Leo over by Hajrudin so they could draw straws and let random chance decide their order. To Cavendish’s delight and Bartolomeo’s chagrin, he drew the lot to be the first ship after all, with Bartolomeo second. They fell into order after that: Sai, then Ideo, then Leo, Hajrudin, and Orlumbus last. They all rejoiced and patted each other on the back for managing to get that decision made as painlessly as possible, and no one had any problem with it. The Tonta Corps’ participation still hinged on convincing their chieftain to let them reform their army as a pirate-allied crew, which Leo wanted to work on immediately so as soon as everyone congratulated everyone else, they were off to do so. All that really remained was to get a good night’s sleep and keep up their watch, waiting to see which arose first: the Marines, or their soon-to-be fleet commander. Ideo lay stretched out the floor, finally able to rest comfortably without the help of the wall, and folded his hands on his chest as he gazed absently up at the high, arched ceiling and listened to the others settling in around him. Bluegilly lay beside him, hands laced behind his head. The two of them had been nearly inseparable all day, hanging out together and subconsciously strengthening their friendship with a lot of teasing and idle chatter about anything but fighting and pirates, up until the formation of battle plans and then a fleet. While the room gradually quieted around them and lamps went out one by one, Ideo couldn’t stop himself murmuring to his friend. “I’m too excited to sleep,” he admitted. “A lot changed today, it’s a lot to process.”

“I know what you mean,” Bluegilly whispered back. “We’ve got a real crew, now! It’s really happening. All that stuff we talked about last night, it’s not just a dream.”

“You can feel it, can’t you?” Ideo turned his head to regard his crewmate. For that’s what they were now, to each other: crewmates. “How real it is. How different it is. It’s like I’m seeing it for the first time, this whole world I’ve been missing because I never stopped to look outside my little bubble of reality.”

“Yeah,” Bluegilly said wistfully. “Just hanging around these guys, I know I made the right choice. This is what we’re meant to do. We’re gonna go out there and challenge pirates and get as strong as we can.”

Sai shot them a look from across the hall, and though he didn’t feel the slightest bit ashamed about being noisy, Ideo chuckled and then rolled over to pillow his head on his tucked-up arm. As hyped as he was, he could at least make a valiant effort at falling sleep. Or, keeping their conversation quiet so as not to disturb the others. “I think you’re right,” he breathed. “We’re meant to do this. I mean, for all of us to just happen to meet on this one island, on the same day, and put our lives in each other’s hands? To come looking for a Devil Fruit to help each of us somehow break out of our rut or get ahead in the world, and come out of it as a pirate fleet?”

“Word has it that everywhere Straw Hat Luffy goes, he leaves miracles in his wake,” Bluegilly murmured. “Maybe this is just one more for the record.”

Ideo laughed softly. He wasn’t much of a believer in anything besides himself and his own strength, but it was a nice thought to have. It made for a pleasant idea to dwell on as the two of them finally drifted off to sleep.

  


Another dawn, another breakfast, another round of peering at one another wondering if today would be the day. Restoration efforts were taking shape all over the island, and though the amount of rubble that would need to be cleared away seemed daunting, the ring of hammers throughout the palace compound suggested that before too long that same sound would be heard all throughout Dressrosa. The allied pirates couldn’t help but be a little on edge, for it seemed next to impossible that the Marines would let a full three days go by before someone from above would order them in against all the bounties in hiding. Orlumbus didn’t wait; as soon as breakfast was over and the coliseum heroes were left to their own devices so that the palace staff could patiently ignore their presence, he ducked out of the palace and made his way toward the east port to check up on his fleet’s preparations in person, finding nothing really out of the ordinary as he traveled alone. He hadn’t been away half an hour when the den-den mushi in Bartolomeo’s coat pocket abruptly began to ring. The others all looked up in keen interest as he pulled it out and picked up, and the vigorous voice pouring out through the snail’s mouth made them all jump. “Boss!” Gambia yelped before his captain could even say a word. “You gotta get down here! We’re gonna be in deep shit in about five minutes!”

Aware of the others hanging on every word of this conversation, Bartolomeo scowled, baring his fangs. “What do you mean deep shit? Are they on the move?”

“Not yet, but another warship just landed at the port!” Gambia squealed. “It’s Vice-Admiral Tsuru’s ship, and she brought the former fleet admiral with her!”

Nearly all of the listening pirates leaped to their feet in shock. “Tsuru!” Cavendish gasped.

“And Sengoku,” Chinjao grunted as he heaved himself up a bit more slowly than the rest.

“Deep shit is right,” Hajrudin snarled, dragging his battered helm to him and putting it on. “Sounds like it’s time.”

Bartolomeo held up a hand to keep any of them from jumping the gun as he leaned into the transmission. “What about Fujitora? Is he moving yet?”

“No, they’re all still sitting around in the camp,” Gambia reported. “The Tontatta just showed up, too, it must be time for their princess to do the thing.”

“Right.” Bartolomeo whirled around to face the others. “I’m giving my den-den mushi to one of the others. Call it the instant those assholes move.” As soon as the connection ended, he tossed the snail at Sai. “That’ll be your signal. I gotta book it if I wanna get to Luffy-senpai in time.”

Sai caught it nimbly and tucked it under his cloak. “The Tontatta being there will buy us a few extra minutes. I’ll call Orlumbus. The rest of you, you know what to do.”

Without even knowing why Admiral Fujitora hadn’t made his move before now, they were almost positive that the arrival of reinforcements would change everything today – immediately. They had to be in position ahead of their adversaries, it wouldn’t do to wait too long. Those few who had bags picked them up and shouldered them, those with weapons brandished them, and Ideo reached to rap his knuckles against Bluegilly’s. “See you when you get to the port,” he said boldly.

His part in the plan was as originally devised: since no one outside of their circle knew that he and Bluegilly had turned rogue, they still had the thin veneer of protection afforded them by their status as champion fighters that would allow them to pass by any Marines without being waylaid. He was going to head out alone, carrying nothing since he had no bags, leaving the palace as freely as any civilian and just walking off into the city streets unmolested. He strolled at a leisurely pace through the wrecked buildings beyond the border of the Birdcage in the direction of the town of Carta, doing his best not to constantly look over his shoulder for pursuit. A few of the townspeople waved as he went by, recognizing him from the tournament, but they were all so busy about their own cleanup and hard work that he could pass through their neighborhoods without even so much as signing an autograph. Jeet and Abdullah weren’t nearly so lucky, they were notorious criminals in their own right and had to make their way by stealthier means in order to join him, which took time. That left Ideo all alone when he casually sauntered out from between piles of rubble to find that there was already a small battalion of Marines standing guard at the east port, looking warily around. He sucked in a quick breath in surprise, and then banished it, putting on a smug air instead and walking right out into the open. One of the soldiers whirled his way at the sense of movement among the ruined buildings, but then relaxed when he realized it wasn’t a pirate of any notoriety. “What are you doing here?” he wondered, standing down his rifle. “There’s nothing out this way but damaged streets. It’s not safe for most people.” 

“There’s a port in Carta, isn’t there?” Ideo openly asked, tipping his head. “I was just coming to see if there were any ships leaving, yet, that I could get on.”

Another Marine leaned over to the first one. “Do you know him or something?”

“Kind of,” the first answered, not bothering to hide it. “By reputation, anyway. That’s the reigning champion of the New World Central Fighting Tournament. He’s not a pirate, he’s cleared to go if he wants.”

Ideo grinned recklessly, thinking to himself just how dead-on Dagama’s assessment had been. Even the Marines let down their guard around someone who they assumed was merely an innocent bystander in all this mess, even a minor celebrity of sorts. “So what’s with the guard detail?” he wondered of them. “Don’t tell me there’s no ships available. I was really hoping to get back to the tournament headquarters and let them know I’m safe.”

The second soldier looked stern, his rifle still gripped tight in both hands. “I’m sorry, but this port isn’t serviceable today. You’ll have to head back into town and try again later.”

“Is that so? That’s a shame.” Ideo tapped a foot idly against the ground, looking down so they couldn’t see the wicked gleam in his eyes. “I came all this way, and for what?”

He didn’t know his comrades were there until there was a sudden rush of running feet coming from his right, the glint of sunlight on steel and then the cries of soldiers as Jeet’s double sabers slashed through them while they stood unguarded. The two he’d been talking to fell at his feet, leaving the rest of their ranks behind them gaping in shock. Before a single Marine could go for a den-den mushi, Ideo leaped over the fallen men and charged into the midst of the battalion, drawing back his fist and sending a good half of them flying in all directions with an explosive punch. He twisted to nod a signal to Abdullah as both bounty hunters joined him. The port being held against them wasn’t a problem, they’d just have to clear everyone out the hard way – and he was just fine with that.

While the newly-arrived Marines under Tsuru stood around the encampment getting caught up on the situation and learning about the Tontatta and their princess’ power, everyone else was able to deploy precisely as needed. Bluegilly sauntered out of the palace with the same freedom to depart as his crewmate and more or less followed his path toward Carta, passing back information to the others so that they could array themselves in all the best places along the route between the plateau and the port in the east. It was true that there was no way to sneak that many of them out without being seen, especially not Hajrudin, and yet a few minutes after they all departed the palace staff walked through the hall and blinked to realize that all of their guests were missing. None of the guard, not even Tank himself, had seen them all go, though one or two contemplated possibly seeing one or another walk past at some time that morning. While Bartolomeo raced toward the house in the flower field and Leo led the Tontatta Corps on various missions assigned by Kyros himself, Sai supervised the rest of the fighters, ordering the giant into an alley between taller houses still left standing and directing Suleiman and Bluegilly further forward in the line. They were all in position well in time, so that when Bartolomeo raced up leading the Straw Hats, Bellamy, and Trafalgar Law, everything went off without a single hitch. Even being pursued by Admiral Fujitora and his anti-gravity ball of rubble didn’t stop them, they made it to the Yonta Fleet bridge and ran the length of it five kilometers out to the flagships anchored together in the fog. They would find out later just how much of a part their little friends the Tontatta had played in a clean escape, all the more reason to accept Leo as fifth-division commander in their fleet.

By the time they were aboard the flagship of the Yonta Fleet, Ideo and Bluegilly were as breathless and excited as everyone around them. Coming so close to being thwarted only to escape with the proverbial tiger’s breath hot on their heels brought back a reminder of the thrill of battle, and seeing everyone working together again only confirmed to Ideo that he had made all the right choices. And then came the moment in which it seemed like everything would come crashing down around them – Luffy refused their offer. But when he climbed up onto the forecastle railing and spoke his mind about what it meant to him that they all fought together and helped each other, and how they could do it again any time they wanted, the assembled captains and their crews understood fully. Hajrudin was right, they could still make their oath and have their fleet without infringing on their savior’s freedom. It was a momentous day, a major step forward for the infamous Straw Hat crew, more than any of them could have realized at the time. All the more reason to celebrate their victory and their lives with the huge banquet Orlumbus promised! There was so much food and drink, more than enough to go around even with all the extra guests, and it didn’t take long at all before Cavendish was so drunk he couldn’t peel himself up off the deck while the Tontatta piled onto Franky and Robin and Luffy wrestled Abdullah for a steak. It was a hell of a party, no one was going away hungry, sober, or bored. Ideo and Bluegilly were as inseparable as they had been in the palace over the past couple of days, making the rounds of all their new comrades, refreshing drinks and accepting refills in turn, laughing and teasing and having the time of their lives. The only one who didn’t seem too thrilled to be in the middle of so much boisterous enthusiasm was Trafalgar Law, but no one paid his sullen grousing any mind.

After a couple of hours and no sign of anything slowing down, Ideo’s head was swimming enough that he needed to go and have a seat for a bit until he could cool down enough to make room for one more drink. He had a half-empty bottle in hand, which he set by his knee as he flopped down along a rail to just watch the shenanigans for a bit. Bluegilly was still loudly carousing with Usopp and Jeet over in the middle of the deck, and the Longarm was content to leave him to it for a bit while he caught his breath. A few moments after he had settled, someone else prowled over and dropped down beside him. He glanced up at the clack of swords against each other and smiled coolly. “Oh, Pirate Hunter. Still haven’t had enough, huh?”

Zoro looked into his mug to assess its current level. “I could use a refill, unless that’s yours.” He nodded toward the bottle with Ideo’s gloved hand resting on the neck.

Ideo shook his head and slid it over. “Be my guest.”

He had poured a drink or two for the notorious second of the Straw Hats already, but this time Zoro simply nodded his thanks and took the bottle straight from him, not bothering to pour the rest into his tankard before having a drink. “What’s the matter,” he teased, “reached your limits?”

“Temporarily,” Ideo laughed, rubbing his head. “I lost a lot of blood in the fight, what I’ve got left is having a hard time keeping up with so much booze.”

“That so?” Zoro didn’t look bothered at all, in fact he seemed to understand completely. His one good eye roamed briefly up from Ideo’s hand on the deck to his strange shoulders and then down his bandaged torso. “You were in the same match with Luffy,” he remembered. “In the coliseum.”

“That’s right.” Ideo looked to him in curiosity. “You were watching?”

“Most of it.” The swordsman nodded vaguely toward the throng of people of all shapes and sizes reveling in the middle of the main deck. “The Tontatta took me to their headquarters, they were showing the tournament on a screen there. I was just in time to see most of that block fight.” His eye went to the shoulders again. “You’ve got a hell of a punch.”

“Thanks.” Ideo tipped his head in Zoro’s direction. “Orlumbus told us the whole story of you taking down Pica. Wish I would’ve been conscious to see it.”

Zoro chuckled softly under his breath with the bottle to his lips, neither denying it nor accepting the compliment. “At least all of you guys are strong. He’ll need that.”

The Longarm arched an eyebrow. “I didn’t know we needed the vice-captain’s approval to be good enough for his captain.”

“You don’t.” Zoro likewise did not deny that some were now calling him vice-captain, even if he didn’t have such a title. “He already knew how strong you guys were before we even got to this ship today. The rest, well.” He flashed a quick grin. “That was pretty ballsy of you guys. I like it.”

“It’s fine, then?” Ideo slumped back against the rail. “I don’t know how pirates work, I’ve only been one for a day and a half.”

Zoro looked sharply toward him again in surprise. “You weren’t a pirate like these other guys, already?”

“Nope, just a boxer. Although,” Ideo said with a tired laugh, “I guess I punched enough Marines this morning to make myself a criminal.”

“It’s a good start,” Zoro agreed, drinking deeply from the bottle. “Had enough fun out there that you decided to raise a black flag, huh?” His scarred eye was toward his current drinking buddy, but Ideo still got the impression that he was being studied even from behind a blind gaze. “Or was it because of Luffy? Wanting to follow after him.”

The Longarm looked away across the deck. The subject of their chat could be heard but not seen at the moment, there were so many people crossing to and fro that all they could notice of Luffy was his laughter ringing out above the noisy din of partying. “Little bit of both. I’m probably in over my head already, but I don’t regret the choice for a minute. Even if I did think, for a second there, that our dreams were going to be crushed because he didn’t want any part of it.”

“You guys had no idea what you were getting into, asking him that.” His tone was gruff, but the twitch of Zoro’s eyebrow and a lift at the corner of his mouth betrayed his hidden amusement. “That’s why everyone underestimates him. He genuinely lives by his instincts and his will, no amount of logic will ever get through to him no matter how on-the-nose it is. Torao fell for it, too, and now he’s stuck in this alliance.” He turned to offer a real smile. “The rest of us are here to take on the logic and the knowledge. I get it, and you guys are right – we’re gonna need help to get anywhere in the New World. It’s not just our one crew alone against the sea anymore. Good thing the bunch of you were there to step up just when we needed it.” He reached to tap the nearly-empty bottle against the boxer’s muscled arm. “Don’t sweat it, it’s fine. The looks on your faces, though. That was hilarious.”

Ideo’s lips twisted wryly in chagrin at the reminder. “He had us all completely disarmed in just one sentence.”

“Yeah, that’s Luffy. All you gotta know is, whatever you expect other people to do in any given situation, don’t think of Luffy the same way. He won’t do things any other way but his own.” The swordsman tossed back the rest of what was left in the bottle and set it back near Ideo’s knee. “When we meet back up again, down the line, make sure you’re strong enough to keep up with him. He’ll plow ahead with or without you, but it’ll be more fun if his fleet captains are right there in the thick of it with him.” He smirked to himself as he pushed himself up, making to go find another refill somewhere. “Maybe then we can all go at it and settle who’s stronger among us. That’d be exciting.”

“Yeah, sure.” Ideo watched him get to his feet with the smooth grace of a deadly martial artist and meander off across the deck, still carrying his half-empty tankard. He had been a professional fighter long enough to be able to gauge strength and skill at a glance, and he was in awe of what he could read in the vice-captain’s figure. In over his head or not, he belonged more with these people than with tournament fighters; the mere idea of someday being strong enough to go toe to toe with the Pirate Hunter, fists against blades, or even better yet, trade punches with Straw Hat again, was enough to have Ideo nearly vibrating with the thrill. He grinned to himself and finally felt able to go and have one more drink.

By the time the party started to wind down, the newly-established fleet had sailed out far enough that Dressrosa was a mere dot of rock far on the horizon behind them. The cooks had finally given up in exhaustion, empty dishes were stacked everywhere all over the main deck of the _Yonta Maria_ as a sign of a job well done but they couldn’t manage to pick themselves up and fill one more plate for the partying pirates. Luffy was more than stuffed and content, he didn’t miss it anyway. Those still in control of their faculties were standing around in small knots, beginning to turn their talk to the voyage ahead, while Cavendish sat against the rail with his hat off and a wet cloth on his forehead like some kind of folk remedy to sober him up enough to make the kinds of decisions needed from a captain. Though he had spent much of the party sitting apart from everyone, Bellamy walked among them now, sure-footed and stable where others were wobbly and flushed in the face. With things around him shifting from party to business he seemed to be seeking something that didn’t matter before but did now, with farewells imminent. He was doing his best not to attract notice, but then Bartolomeo turned around sharply and nearly smacked into him. “Oh, it’s you,” he said with some gusto, sticking his thumbs in his belt and grinning. “What’s up, my brother?”

Bellamy made a bit of a face. “You’re still on about that brother shit, huh?”

“You think I’d abandon even thoughts of my brothers of the ring at a time like this?” Bartolomeo looked him up and down, clearly checking to see if he was still badly hurt and how he was getting along in general. “I heard Luffy-senpai say something about you getting on the wrong side of Doflamingo up in the palace. At least you made it out of there alive like the rest of us, eh?”

A shadow crossed Bellamy’s face, but he mastered it quickly and just nodded. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

“So what’re you gonna do now? I mean.” Bartolomeo shrugged stiffly. “The guy whose crew you were trying to join got taken down hard, ain’t nothing left to join. You’ve gotta go somewhere, though.”

No one but Bellamy himself knew how much he had been pondering that exact question over the past two days, ever since waking up inside Kyros’ little house to find Trafalgar Law bent over him, healing his near-fatal injuries, and the Straw Hats amicably behaving like he was meant to be there all along. Only he knew what it felt like to consider yet again that his idol was no more, his dreams were dead, and his admissions to Luffy that he had backed the wrong man were still hard to repeat in front of others. He simply turned a shoulder toward Bartolomeo, folding his thick arms. “I don’t really know,” he confessed in a low grumble. “I lost my own crew over a year ago. I was never a part of his, not for real. For the first time since I was just a young punk I don’t have anything…”

“Nothing, huh? I don’t buy that.” Bartolomeo’s toothy smirk faded, and he glanced across the deck. In his line of sight sat Luffy, but around him were several of the fleet captains, all bright smiles and eager dreams of the path ahead. “You were sitting right here when we made our oath. It’d be pretty easy for you to jump in and be a part of that.”

Bellamy peeped over his shoulder in order to follow his gaze and understand who and what he meant. For a long moment he said nothing, and turned back around to avoid watching all the happy faces across the deck. Strangely enough, of all the people crowded onto the _Yonta Maria_ , Bartolomeo was one of two Bellamy felt like he could be somewhat honest with. He owed the rookie captain his life, after all. “It’s not so simple,” he muttered darkly. “Maybe for you guys, but not for me. I tried to kill him.”

Bartolomeo bared his teeth at the mere thought that anyone should want to kill his idol. “But you didn’t, obviously,” he countered, his irritation passing quickly as he focused on his war-brother’s plight instead. “He stopped you, didn’t he? Are you gonna throw away his kindness by rejecting him after all of that?”

“No,” Bellamy quickly said, a low but insistent growl. “I’m not throwing yours away, either. I’m just saying, it’s more complicated than just pretending like none of that ever happened and jumping on board his ship.” He finally took a step around to face Bartolomeo again, close enough that no one could eavesdrop on this serious moment. “I have some things to work out on my own. Until I do, I don’t belong in any of the crews here, or in his fleet.”

Bartolomeo finally understood, and nodded once. “Fine. That’s better than nothing, I guess. Just so you know, I’d totally let you into the Barto Club if you wanted.”

“Brothers of the ring after all,” Bellamy said with a wry, humorless chuckle. “You haven’t seen the last of me, Bartolomeo. But I saw your ship alongside this one, and no thanks. I think I’ll pass.”

“Is Orlumbus giving you a ride to the next port, too, then?” the notorious captain asked as the grim solemnity faded and Ideo happened to wander nearby as if to look into what they were chatting about.

“I guess so,” Bellamy replied, giving the Longarm a manly nod of greeting. “I heard these other guys were riding with him for now. So you’re going out to sea with those weirdos, huh?” he asked Ideo directly.

Ideo paused and frowned, then remembered that this was the man who had taken down Jeet and Abdullah during B Block. “Yeah, for better or for worse,” he said with a little laugh. “Bluegilly and I formed the crew together, but we can’t get by with just the two of us. Not here in the New World.”

“Ah…yeah, no, you’re right,” the former captain grunted. “This sea is hell, you’re gonna need every advantage you can score. Maybe you’ll get lucky and they won’t be too much headache.” He nodded past Ideo to where Bluegilly was doing his best to suavely chat up Nico Robin. “The Longleg was a pretty damn good fighter. So were you. You guys have a chance, at least.”

The knot already forming around them grew larger as Sai blundered his way over, carrying his pike again instead of a tankard. “Looks like it’s getting to be about that time. We’re far enough out from Dressrosa, we can safely split up and head on our own courses.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Ideo remarked, looking around. “You’re still taking the Straw Hats from here, Bartolomeo?”

As downhearted as he was to be leaving the company of friends, Bartolomeo perked right up again at that reminder. “Yep! We’ve got to bring ‘em to the rest of their crew and their ship. Ahh, I’m so excited! I can’t wait for him to see the ship!”

“Guess that means we’ll see all of you later,” Sai said boldly, “whenever later happens to be. We’ll have to come together again as a fleet, right? Once these Triple-X guys have a ship, and Hajrudin has his crew.”

“Yeah, we will,” Bartolomeo said with some concern, brows knitting. “But how? Does anybody have Vivre cards to pass around?”

“It would be a lot easier if our boss had a Vivre card,” Sai noted.

Luffy was not so far away that he could not overhear – and he had been paying some semblance of attention to their chatter once he saw Bellamy actively talking to his other allies. “Oh, I do!” he said brightly, tossing aside an empty plate in order to dig in the pockets of his shorts. He had gotten it from Zoro at some point and tucked it away, but all four pockets were now stretched around his overloaded belly and he couldn’t remember which one he put it in. At last he found it and held up the blank sheet of paper which would draw anyone to his side if they took a piece of it. “See? Sabo had it made while I was asleep. Boy, this is really gonna come in handy, now.” He offered it out to the gathering captains of the Straw Hat Grand Fleet. “If you guys wanna be able to find me again, go ahead, take a piece. If you’ve got one, let’s trade, so we can all go to each other’s side if you need help.”

To his surprise and delight, Bellamy shouldered past Ideo and Sai and stepped up to claim the first piece. Or second, really; there was already a tiny scrap torn from the upper corner, where Sabo had taken his piece in order to be able to find his brother again. “I’m not joining your fleet,” he declared, “but maybe I’ll take this just in case.”

One by one the others tore a scrap off, confirming once and for all that they were in this for the long haul, that no matter where their separate journeys took them they would always be prepared to meet back up with the man to whom they had pledged their loyalty. A few deep breaths and broad smiles for one another was all it took to bring the party officially to an end and make it easier for them to split up and return to their ships. Luffy’s only words to them were on the order of “see you later,” he wasn’t one for lengthy nor final goodbyes. Orlumbus ordered his flagship to weigh anchor briefly, just long enough for the others to anchor alongside and receive their captains and crewmates at a safe stop. Don Sai and his brother, grandfather, and fiancé were the first to depart, waving before hopping down onto the _Happosai_ floating alongside. Once their eight vessels raised sail and cleared a path, Cavendish and Suleiman were next, the captain tossing a few insults at Bartolomeo before gracefully leaping the rail onto his elegant ship where his noble crew awaited. The Tontatta who had stayed to party then boarded Kabu’s beetle fleet to fly back to Dressrosa before it fell too far behind for the Yellow Cabs to reach, and were sent off with warm well-wishes from the Straw Hats who had come to adore them. Since nearly everyone else was to be a guest of the Yonta Fleet for a time, the final departure belonged to Bartolomeo and his passengers. Luffy leaned on the rail and then laughed himself silly at the sight of the figurehead of the _Going Luffy-senpai_ as it moored alongside the Yonta Maria. His crewmates took the sight with a bit more trepidation and embarrassment. Shouldering his nodachi, Law strode through the group and checked at the sight of the ship awaiting them, but he had no choice. He heaved a sigh and glanced at the other fleet captains and comrades lingering around to see them off. “On your heads be it,” was all he said, possibly a warning but just as likely a note of commiseration. After all, though he wasn’t a member of the fleet, he had an alliance with the wild captain currently swinging like a monkey on a vine over to the Barto Club’s ship. For better or worse, they were all in this together in some fashion. Abdullah and Jeet waved to him like they were all old buddies just for having ridden a bull across the battlefield together, though all anyone got in return from Law was the glint of an eye shadowed beneath the visor of his hat before he sprang across the gap and landed neatly on the other side.

Luffy had shot an arm out to grab one of the mast spars and swing over, but dangled there for a moment longer in order to twist around and wave openly at the pirates still bellied up to the rail. “See you guys soon! Do your best out there!”

Hajrudin laughed loudly, and Orlumbus raised a hand in farewell. “I’d tell you to stay out of trouble, but trouble is what we do best!”

“Straw Hat! We’ll be so much stronger next time you see us!” Jeet yelled across the water. “Just you wait and see!”

“That’s right,” Bluegilly crowed proudly, punching a fist in the air. “We’ll make you proud!”

Luffy laughed brightly in acceptance of their promises and finally let go, dropping onto the deck with a thud. Bartolomeo had his crew moving to unmoor and back away, and then likewise came to the rail to wave back up to his brothers of the battlefield. The spangled Barto Club sails caught the wind and then they were turning away, and shortly after no one on either ship could see each other well enough to keep waving. The remaining fleet captains and their associates stood at the rail for some time afterward, simply watching the ship vanish over the waves, all except for Orlumbus who had orders to dish out. The _Yonta Maria_ was in desperate need of a good cleaning, his guests needed quarters, his fifty-five followers needed to fall into formation, and a course had to be set. He came back around to find all of them, even Bellamy, content to silently watch the departing ship at a distance. “Well, then,” he said to get their attention. “For lack of a better idea, I’m having the fleet set course for one of the nearby islands so we can resupply. That party took almost everything we had in storage, we’ll need more. Until then…” He squinted up at the giant hovering over them all. “…I’m afraid the only place suitable to Hajrudin is out here on the main deck. She’s a big ship but the doors are all much smaller.”

“That’s fine,” Hajrudin grunted. “I am at your mercy and benevolence, Orlumbus. I’ll make do until I can get a hold of my crew and get them to meet me here.”

“The rest of you can squeeze in with my officers,” the commodore went on. “It shouldn’t be more than a couple of days. I figure if anyone wants to disembark then, we can part ways on a decent island where you should be able to get anything you need.”

The others nodded to accept his offer, and then at long last began to break up and go their separate ways around the ship, trying to stay out of the way of the crew trying desperately to pick up all those empty dishes and mugs scattered everywhere. Bluegilly nudged Ideo and stepped aside near the stairs to the forecastle, finding a corner near the rail where they could just hang out and talk. “Got any ideas, yet?”

“Maybe,” the Longarm replied. “We’re gonna need a real ship of our own, first of all. If Orlumbus can set us up, or we can find something at the next island, great. If not, we’re still at square one.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Bluegilly mused. “But between the four of us, how much money do we even have? Probably not enough for a ship. We might have to beg Orlumbus.”

Ideo cast a glance over one shoulder at the little _Nita Maria_ ships swarming around them now that they were properly underway, dwarfed by the flagship but still each one of them a two-masted sloop the same size as those which had just departed. There were so many that it felt like the commodore wouldn’t even miss one, but by the same token, his crew numbered in the thousands and even one ship could be too much to give away. “Do you think he’d really do that?” he sincerely wondered. “I mean, with his crew and his fleet, even one ship could be a price too high to pay. On top of that, even his smallest ship would be hard work for just four people to handle.”

Bluegilly smirked a little at his uncertainty. “What’s the matter, not up to the challenge?”

Predictably, Ideo bristled and rose to the bait. “Don’t even get that idea into your head. If that’s what it takes, I’ll gladly do it. I’m just saying, I’m gonna be realistic about our options.” He looked away over the rail at the wide open sea all around them, stretching endlessly beyond the protective ring of ships. “…yeah, all right. I’ll ask him. If he can do it, we can break away on our own as soon as we reach this island.”

“And then what?”

“And then we hit the high seas.” Ideo’s gaze shifted back, and his frown of contemplation had a shade of shyness about it. “Actually, to be honest…I was thinking about backtracking to Kenzan Island, if we can. I know it’s on the other side of the Red Line and we’d have to re-enter the New World to really get started, and maybe we wouldn’t even be able to manage it, but…”

“Kenzan…?” Bluegilly frowned warily. He knew the name well. “Why there? Need to go home for something?”

“Eh…” Ideo didn’t exactly answer, though he tipped his head noncommittally. “It was just a thought. If we can’t get it done, the New World is just as good a place as any to start a fight.”

For a man who had just stepped up to take responsibility for this four-man crew in the midst of a fleet of powerful pirates, this touch of humility looked good on him, Bluegilly thought. If he was hiding a more personal reason to want to visit home, he wasn’t about to pry. “I’ve never seen Tehna Gehna, since Longlegs aren’t exactly welcome there,” he noted.

For the first time since they’d met, Ideo found himself confronted with the reality of relations between their two tribes. He had genuinely not, at any point, considered Bluegilly anything but a fellow martial artist, but now he realized just how unique their relationship had become in just three days. Longarms and Longlegs didn’t get along on account of the thousand-year-long conflict between their tribes, though actual fighting only happened when and if they came into contact with each other. Yet, here they were, fast friends already and prepared to head a pirate crew in the hellish New World, all because neither of them seemed to really care about that old and ridiculous prejudice in the face of true strength and following their dreams. Somehow, given everything that had happened to them, it had never occurred to either of them to hate each other. A vaguely fond smile awakened on Ideo’s lips. “If we get there,” he said, “nobody’s gonna mess with any of my crewmates if I have anything to say about it. That includes you.”

Bluegilly grinned back. He wasn’t personally worried about his own safety among the Longarm tribe, but hearing that promise delivered with a touch of pride and possessiveness felt like a stroke of reassurance that he had made the right choice, attaching himself to Ideo. Their future was completely unknown and wide open for any possibilities, but they would face it together. “My hero,” he teased dryly. “Are there other Longarm pirates, or would you be the first?”

“Nah, there’s a few. You might have heard of Scratchmen Apoo, he’s considered part of the Worst Generation like Straw Hat and Trafalgar Law.” Ideo shrugged one extended shoulder. “I don’t know him personally but I know he’s in the New World somewhere. There’s others scattered about, but no one else as famous. What about Longlegs?”

“Eh, it’s kind of the same. There’s one or two out there, in some of the larger crews, but no one really that famous.” Bluegilly’s doofy grin faded somewhat. “So if you show up at home with a pirate crew in tow, it’s not gonna cause too many ripples.”

“Not really. But that’s not why I want to visit.” Ideo was still not forthcoming about his reason, but so long as he didn’t have to be, he also didn’t have to commit to it. He knew full well that it would be something of a feat to even make the effort to travel all the way to Kenzan and then try to come all the way back to where they already were in the New World. It was said to be nearly impossible to retreat back to Paradise, but the Marines did it all the time, and emperor crews had made the passage safely without having to give up ships at the Red Line. He wasn’t sure how to make it happen, but if it turned out to be smarter to just stay in the New World and keep moving forward, he was sure that Bluegilly wouldn’t hold him to a foolishly-made promise. The two of them seemed to understand each other perfectly, there was nothing even resembling an argument standing between them. He looked up to the slightly-taller Longleg and found himself again wondering how two people who should never have even rubbed shoulders got to be so close so quickly. Rather than question it, he reveled in it. He turned to lean on the rail and let the afternoon sun fall on his face, and smirked to himself as he felt that presence at his elbow joining him. “The strongest Longarm and Longleg pirates in the world,” he said, remembering what they had said upon first clasping hands and making their promise. “It has a nice ring to it.”

“Someday, Ideo,” Bluegilly murmured happily, content to lean there beside him and watch the sea go by. “You and me, together.”

“That’s right.” There was no telling what kind of adventure awaited them as soon as they parted from Orlumbus and the others. Even if all they had to do with themselves today was stay out of the crew’s way, Ideo knew it would all change soon, and for the better. He practically couldn’t wait.


End file.
